Cyber Crimes Without Punishment
Cyber Crime - Crime without Punishment
The world over cyber crime has taken deep root and the use of cyberspace by sophisticated cyber criminals has assumed serious proportion today. Criminals and terrorists associated with drug trafficking, terrorist outfits are employing Internet for anti social, anti national and criminal activities with impunity.
Terrorist groups are deftly using Internet for passing on information with regard to executing various terrorist acts having serious negative impact on human life. The cyber-terrorists have even acquired the capability to penetrate computer systems using “logic bombs” (coded devices that can be remotely detonated), electro magnetic pulses and high-emission radio frequency guns, which blow a devastating electronic wind through a computer system. The hackers have gone to the extent of distributing free hacking software -- Rootkit, for instance -- to enable an intruder to get root access to a network and then control as though they were the system's administrators. Many instances of cyber crime involve techno-trespass and unauthorized access to the computer system and data or programmes stored in computers. This access could be without authorization or exceeding the authorization given to an individual. The unauthorized access may lead to theft, alteration or destruction of data, tampering with computer programmes or other software, damage to computers or computer systems including damage to data stored on storage devices, such as hard disks, floppy disks, CD-ROMs, etc. This would, in turn, lead to serious financial loss to the organisation. Thus computer crime today has emerged as a challenge for criminal justice system and law enforcement.
Studies have shown that computer criminals are generally computer professionals or computer-literate persons and are not history sheeters and mostly without previous criminal record. Studies also show that the threat is mostly from employees or from those with access to the system, such as maintenance personnel, hardware and software vendors, etc. however, external threats via remote access have shown an increasing trend.
Broadly speaking, computer-related crimes may be categorized into two major categories:
1) Where the computer is a target of the crime.
2) Where computer is an instrument of the crime.
I. Computer as target of the Crime
In the first category of computer crimes, computer is the target of the crime. Some of the crimes, which would fall under this category are:
a. Sabotage of computer systems or computer networks;
b. Sabotage of operating systems and programmes;
c. Theft of data/information (this is the fastest growing computer-related crime);
d. Theft of intellectual property, such as computer software;
e. Theft of marketing information; and
f. Blackmail based on information gained from computerized files, such as medical information, personal history, sexual preferences, financial data, etc.
II. Computer as an Instrument facilitating crime
In the second category of computer-related crimes, computer is used as an instrument facilitating crime. Most vivid example of computers being used as an instrument of Cyber crime has been the recent attack on parliament where computer and internet was used in a variety of ways to perpetrate the crime. The terrorist and criminals are using Internet methods such as e-mail, to flash encrypted messages around the globe. Frauds related to electronic banking or electronic commerce are other typical examples. In these crimes, computer programmes are manipulated to facilitate the crimes namely,
a. Fraudulent use of Automated Teller Machine (ATM) cards and accounts;
b. Credit card frauds;
c. Frauds involving electronic finds transfers;
d. Telecommunication Frauds; and
e. Frauds relating to Electronic Commerce and Electronic Data Interchange.
Theft of Intellectual Property Rights is also part of cyber space burglars. In USA alone, the Fortune 1000 companies suffer a loss of about 300 billion dollars annually on this account. Their targets are computer software, semiconductor, and pharmaceutical units. The conventional law dealing with these crimes are proving to be of Stone Age incapable of dealing with crime of lightening speed imparted by high technology.
