Law all set to take on cyber goons

A fired employee from a multinational company had to take revenge against his boss. His expertise in computers came handy.

A fired employee from a multinational company had to take revenge against his boss. His expertise in computers came handy. He hacked the office computer for vital data. The person then threatened the boss saying that he would hand over the data to the competitor company if he was not re-inducted.

HT Image

This is one of the many cases that had been referred to the Cyber Crime Wing of the Uttar Pradesh Police. “Uttar Pradesh is as vulnerable as any other tech-savvy state in the country,” says Vikram Singh, the Additional Director General of Police, Cyber Crime.

In India, cyber crime laws were enacted in 2000, while in the USA, the Counterfeit Access Device and Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, 1984 was enacted to cover computer crimes.

Parliament had passed its first Cyber Law, the Information Technology Act, 2000, which provides legal infrastructure for e-commerce in India and at the same time, empowers police to search, without any warrant, any public place for the purpose of nabbing cyber criminals to prevent cyber crime.

Cyber crimes are of different nature ranging from child-pornography to destruction of property. Trafficking, distribution, posting, and dissemination of obscene material including pornography, indecent exposure, harassment-sexual, caste, creed, violation and privacy are some of it. Harassing through computer e-mail has grown over the years.

Terrorism has come a handy tool for anti-nationals to create panic among the masses and in the government. In one such incident in the recent past, a terror mail was sent from Chennai to the government warning it about bomb blasts in Delhi.

This had created panic among the citizens and the security agencies.