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Chapter - 1: History of Cyber Crime
Chapter - 1: History of Cyber Crime
INTRODUCTION
The internet in India is growing rapidly. It has given rise to new opportunities in every field
we can think of – be it entertainment, business, sports or education.
There are two sides to a coin. Internet also has its own disadvantages. One of the major
disadvantages is Cyber crime – illegal activity committed on the internet.
The first recorded cyber crime took place in the year 1820!
In 1820, Joseph-Marie Jacquard, a textile manufacturer in France, produced the loom. This
device allowed the repetition of a series of steps in the weaving of special fabrics. This resulted
in a fear amongst Jacquard's employees that their traditional employment and livelihood were
being threatened. They committed acts of sabotage to discourage Jacquard from further use of
the new technology. This is the first recorded cyber crime!
1971
John Draper discovers the give-away whistle in Cap'n Crunch cereal boxes reproduces a
2600Hz tone. Draper builds a „blue box‟ that, when used with the whistle and sounded into a
phone receiver, allows phreaks to make free calls. Esquire publishes "Secrets of the Little
Blue Box" with instructions for making one. Wire fraud in the US escalates.
1972
The InterNetworking Working Group is founded to govern the standards of the Internet.
Vinton Cerf is the chairman and is known as a "Father of the Internet”.
1973
Teller at New York's Dime Savings Bank uses a computer to embezzle over $2
million
1978
First electronic bulletin board system (BBS) appears; becomes the primary means
of communication for the electronic underground..
1981
Ian Murphy, aka. "Captain Zap“, becomes first felon convicted of a computer crime.
Murphy broke into AT&T‟s computers and changed the billing clock so that people
receive discounted rates during normal business hours.
1982
1983
1984
1987
1988
Kevin Mitnick secretly monitors the e-mail of MCI and DEC security officials. He
is convicted and sentenced to a year in jail.
Kevin Poulsen is indicted on phone-tampering charges. He goes on the run and avoids
capture for 17 months.
First National Bank of Chicago is the victim of $70-million computer theft.
Robert T. Morris, Jr., graduate student at Cornell University and son of a chief scientist at
the NSA, launches a self-replicating worm (the Morris Worm) on the government's
ARPAnet (precursor to the Internet). The worm gets out of hand and spreads to over
6000 networked computers, clogging government and university systems. Morris is
dismissed from Cornell, sentenced to three years' probation, and fined $10K.
1989
First large-scale computer extortion case is investigated - under the pretence of a quiz on
the AIDS virus, users unwittingly download a program which threatens to destroy all
their computer data unless they pay $500 into a foreign account.
Hackers in West Germany (loosely affiliated with the Chaos Computer Club) are
arrested for breaking into US government and corporate computers and selling
operating-system source code to the KGB.
1990
Cyber Law is the law governing cyber space. Cyber space is a very wide term and includes
computers, networks, software, data storage devices (such as hard disks, USB disks etc), the
Internet, websites, emails and even electronic devices such as cell phones, ATM machines
etc.
Cyber crimes can involve criminal activities that are traditional in nature, such as theft, fraud,
forgery, defamation and mischief, all of which are subject to the Indian Penal Code. The
abuse of computers has also given birth to a gamut of new age crimes that are addressed by
the Information Technology Act, 2000.
The expression „Crime‟ is defined as an act, which subjects the doer to legal punishment or
any offence against morality, social order or any unjust or shameful act. The “Offence" is
defined in the Code of Criminal
Procedure to mean as an act or omission made punishable by any law for the time being in
force.
It‟s an unlawful act wherein the computer is either a tool or a target or both.
Cyber space is a virtual space that has become as important as real space for business,
politics, and communities .
Cyber Crime is emerging as a serious threat. World wide governments, police departments
and intelligence units have started to react.
Cyber Crime is a term used to broadly describe criminal activity in which computers or
computer networks are a tool, a target, or a place of criminal activity and include everything
from electronic cracking to denial of service attacks. It is also used to include traditional
crimes in which computers or networks are used to enable the illicit activity.
Computer crime mainly consists of unauthorized access to computer systems data
alteration, data destruction, theft of intellectual property. Cyber crime in the context of
national security may involve hacking, traditional espionage, or information warfare and
related activities.
Pornography, Threatening Email, Assuming someone's Identity, Sexual Harassment,
Defamation, Spam and Phishing are some examples where computers are used to commit
crime, whereas Viruses, Worms and Industrial Espionage, Software Piracy and Hacking are
examples where computers become target of crime.
A computer crime is any illegal act, the commission of which (in whole or in part):
Cyber harassment is a distinct Cyber crime. Various kinds of harassment can and do
occur in cyberspace, or through the use of cyberspace. Harassment can be sexual,
racial, religious, or other.
2. Cyber crimes against property :
The growth of internet has shown that the medium of Cyberspace is being used by
individuals and groups to threaten the international governments as also to terrorize
the citizens of a country.
Technical Aspects
Technological advancements have created new possibilities for criminal activity, in particular
the criminal misuse of information technologies such as
o Access means gaining entry into, instructing or communicating with the logical,
arithmetical, or memory function resources of a computer, computer system or computer
network.
o Unauthorized access would therefore mean any kind of access without the permission of
either the rightful owner or the person in charge of a computer, computer system or
computer network.
o By hacking web server taking control on another persons website called as web hijacking
b) Trojan Attack:-
o The program that act like something useful but do the things that are quiet damping.
The programs of this kind are called as Trojans.
o Trojans come in two parts, a Client part and a Server part. When the victim
(unknowingly) runs the server on its machine, the attacker will then use the Client to
connect to the Server and start using the trojan.
o Programs that multiply like viruses but spread from computer to computer are
called as worms.
Three main ways to attack IRC are: Denial of service attacks, clone attacks, and flood attacks.
Denial of Service attacks:-
Flooding a computer resource with more requests than it can handle. This causes the resource
to crash thereby denying access of service to authorized users.
Examples include
Attempts to "flood" a network, thereby preventing legitimate network traffic
Attempts to disrupt connections between two machines, thereby preventing access
to a service
Attempts to prevent a particular individual from accessing a service
Attempts to disrupt service to a specific system or person.
This would include sale of narcotics, weapons and wildlife etc., by posting information on
websites, auction websites, and bulletin boards or simply by using email communication.
g) Online gambling
There are millions of websites; all hosted on servers abroad, that offer online gambling. In fact,
it is believed that many of these websites are actually fronts for money laundering.
Why India?
India stands 11th in the ranking for Cyber Crime in the World, constituting 3% of the Global
Cyber Crime.
India is the third-most targeted country for Phishing attacks after the US and the
UK,
Social networks as well as ecommerce sites are major targets,
6.9 million bot-infected systems in 2010,
14,348 website defacements in 2010,
6,850 .in and 4,150 .com domains were defaced during 2011,
15,000 sites hacked in 2011,
India is the number 1 country in the world for generating spam.
A total number of 90, 119, 252 and 219 Government websites tracked by the Indian Computer
Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) were hacked / defaced by various hacker groups in the
year 2008, 2009, 2010 and Jan–Oct 2011 respectively.
The police have recorded 3,038 cases but made only 2,700 arrests in 3 years (between 2007
and 2010)
India registered only 1,350 cases under the IT Act and IPC in 2010
50% of cybercrimes are not even reported.
Under The Information Technology Act, 2000
The primary source of cyber law in India is the Information Technology Act, 2000 (IT Act)
which came into force on 17 October 2000.
The primary purpose of the Act is to provide legal recognition to electronic commerce and to
facilitate filing of electronic records with the Government.
The IT Act also penalizes various cyber crimes and provides strict punishments (imprisonment
terms upto 10 years and compensation up to Rs 1 crore).
(1) Whoever with the Intent to cause or knowing that he is likely to cause Wrongful Loss
or Damage to the public or any person Destroys or Deletes or Alters any Information
Residing in a Computer Resource or diminishes its value or utility or affects it
injuriously by any means, commits hack.
(2) Whoever commits hacking shall be punished with imprisonment up to three years, or
with fine which may extend up to two lakh rupees, or with both.
Information Technology (Certifying Authority) Regulations,2001
came into force on 9 July 2001. They provide further technical standards and
procedures to be used by a CA.
Two important guidelines relating to CAs were issued. The first are the Guidelines
for submission of application for license to operate as a Certifying Authority under
the IT Act. These guidelines were issued on 9th July 2001.
Next were the Guidelines for submission of certificates and certification revocation
lists to the Controller of Certifying Authorities for publishing National Repository of
Digital Certificates. These were issue on 16th December 2002.
Cyber Regulations Appellate Tribunal (Procedure) Rules, 2000
also came into force on 17th October 2000.
These rules prescribe the appointment and working of the Cyber Regulations Appellate Tribunal
(CRAT) whose primary role is to hear appeals against orders of the Adjudicating Officers.
The Cyber Regulations Appellate Tribunal (Salary, Allowances and other terms and conditions
of service of Presiding Officer) Rules, 2003 prescribe the salary, allowances and other terms for
the Presiding Officer of the CRAT.
Information Technology (Other powers of Civil Court vested in Cyber Appellate Tribunal) Rules
2003 provided some additional powers to the CRAT.
Also relevant are the Information Technology (Other Standards) Rules, 2003.
An important order relating to blocking of websites was passed on 27th February,
2003.Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-IND) can instruct Department of
Telecommunications (DOT) to block a website.
The Indian Penal Code (as amended by the IT Act) penalizes several cyber crimes. These
include forgery of electronic records, cyber frauds, destroying electronic evidence etc.
Digital Evidence is to be collected and proven in court as per the provisions of the Indian
Evidence Act (as amended by the IT Act).
In case of bank records, the provisions of the Bankers‟ Book Evidence Act (as amended
by the IT Act) are relevant.
Investigation and adjudication of cyber crimes is done in accordance with the provisions
of the Code of Criminal Procedure and the IT Act.
The Reserve Bank of India Act was also amended by the IT Act.
Information Technology Amendment Act, 2008
Section – 43,
Destroys, Deletes or Alters any Information residing in a computer resource or
diminishes its value or utility or affects it injuriously by any means;
Steals, conceals, destroys or alters or causes any person to steal, conceal, destroy
or alter any computer source code used for a computer resource with an intention
to cause damage;
“If any person, dishonestly, or fraudulently, does any act referred to in section 43, he
shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to two three
years or with fine which may extend to five lakh rupees or with both.” [S.66]
CONCLUSION
• CYBER LAWS_ ESSENTIAL FEATURE IN TODAYS WORLD OF INTERNET
• “Indian Laws are well drafted and are capable of handling all kinds of challenges as posed
by cyber criminals. However, the enforcement agencies are required to be well versed with
the changing technologies and Laws.”
• "As internet technology advances so does the threat of cyber crime. In times like these we
must protect ourselves from cyber crime. Anti-virus software, firewalls and security patches
are just the beginning. Never open suspicious e-mails and only navigate to trusted sites.”