This Article is written by Ayush kumar Singh, Banaras Hindu University, 2nd Semester student, and an Intern under Legal Vidhiya
ABSTRACT
The term cyber security and before it threats borne by it are very much in vogue because the internet, the universal weapon behind it is somehow we can say is out of mankind’s reach and imagination in terms of its development and unexpected effects. The prodigious Internet has become a modality of cultural and legal transmission and as a result, blurring international boundaries, fading legal frontiers and the power of software architecture has expanded the locus of crime to the farthest fringes of the globe. Thorny legal issues are the result and the ontological reality of crime surfaces its head as a concern. Folks as the title suggests this article is all about the threats that we face by using the cyber space, how can we safeguard ourselves and our society as well from its misapplication or abuse and in case got hampered or affected what are legal safeguards that our state and statute have made and we will thrive for.
KEYWORDS
Cybercrime, ARPANET, Kaleidoscopic, Advanced persistent threats (APT), Artificial intelligence (AI), Computer emergency response team (CERT), deep fake, Critical information infrastructure (CII).
INTRODUCTION
Cybercrimes represent the latest generation of crimes whereby the legal latitude has been narrowed down by the ill effects of the electronic media by the variety of challenges it makes us face with every changing moment and consequently the entire criminal legal infrastructure on which the world hovers around, comprising of fact finding, the search for truth and nabbing the criminal with exact evidence in this era of cyber hegemony we can say is great task, and while ensuring the due application of these enforcement responses, they are facing legal, technical, political and operational challenges. When Blaise Pascal built the first digital but non-electronic computer in 1642, little did he know that centuries later, the forthcoming generations who will be using this innovations woul change the way we live, think and work with this, and ultimately would rewrite Law lexicons. These electronic behemoths became a substitute for human brains, and in mid 20th century the rise and advent of internet multiplied the power of this wonder machine to the human race and the world moved on the path of never stopping growth and was never like before. Now, we should be crystal clear that this scenario of the crimes by these man made machines got originated only with the advent of internet, now the question arises from where this internet came into being, so The internet started in a small way in The United Nations in the year 1969 with barely three computers; one in Utah and the other two in California by Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), part of the Department of Defence (DoD) as the basis of its own network—Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET), a small network shared by supercomputers in US, and over the period of time evolutions carried on by adding into advanced components, features making it more agile to cope with the growing demand of human society, now the traumatized human civilization is overwhelmed with the Net power which depicts the magnitude of network proliferation and the speed with which it enveloped the entire globe.
DEFINITION
Cybercrimes can be simply defined as “crimes directed at a computer or a compter system”, The US department of justice has defined it as an “illegal act requiring knowledge of computer technology for its penetration, investigation or prosecution.” One thing we have seen around that the words “cybercrimes” & “computer crimes” are used synonymously in normal parlances, But the word “computer crimes” has wider ambit as it entails not only crimes committed on the internet but also offences committed in relation to or with the help of computers. Donn B. Parker distinguishes between these terms and gave the definitions in the following words; 1). Computer crime—A crime in which the perpetrator uses special knowledge about computer technology. 2). Cybercrime—A crime in which the perpetrator uses its expertise and knowledge of cyberspace.
The term “Cybercrime or Cyber threat” though technically relates to the vandalising and violation of the network system, yet it is commonly used to mean crimes and breaches in relation to computers which are not connected to the Net. The term literally has a very wide scope, like it may consist of freeing of a virus into the network, the defacing of computer data or it may also includes unauthorized entry into someone’s information stored into computer. But as we see and go deeper into all the aspects of varied definitions of various scholars we observe that Cybercrimes by definition are arcane, they are not exhaustive as there are many unlawful and unethical acts related to computer and cyber space which can be called abusive activities but they are often not clearly illegal and this is the biggest hindrance in having a comprehensive understanding of this strange and dynamic term.
EVOLUTION & EXPANSION
Computers do not commit crimes by themselves, the intervention of technology hand in hand with internet has transformed and has given birth to a new generation of crimes. In such computer related crimes the role of Human hand is less while the major activities are carried out by the expertise of human brain supplemented by the automated machines. So, over the period of time internet as the wonder gift of science has become a heaven for criminals to execute the crimes. There is now another catena of crimes where the role of computers is dominant and which are the typical crimes of the Internet Age, Their novice and intangible form poses new threat to the legal standards and norms which are to be set out, some of the most common cyber threats are Hacking, denial of service attacks, spoofing, phishing etc. where the modus operandi is completely technical and electronic. Hence, cybersecurity threats has gone a long way and evolved drastically from simple crime and academic experiments to Intangibility of AI driven highly sophisticated and financially motivated attacks by 2026, Over the past decade, the world has witnessed a dramatic increase in the cyber threats, the digital age although brought about new opportunities for innovation and growth yet it has also created new avenues for cybercriminals to exploit. According to a report by Harvard business review, in the year 2020, ransomware attacks rose by 150% in comparison to the year 2019, in the current scenario businesses and the entities suffers a huge financial loss, according to a study by IBM, average cost suffered by the data breach in 2020 was $3.86 million. The period between 2009 to 2012 saw the advent of APTs i.e. Advanced persistent threats, they are long term attacks on computers with the main target of stealing data from predetermined specific target, they are highly sophisticated too, attackers have to spend months or sometimes even years in order to gather information of their targets before launching the attacks, here the aim is to steal the desired information without being detected, operation Aurora is the best example wherebythe giant companies like Google, Adobe etc. were targeted. The period of 2013-16 is the era where the victims are being threatened for ransoms by a malware that encrypts victims files on its own and on the other hand Business email compromise (BEC) is a type of threat that specifically targets senior executive and tricking employees so that they transfer money to a fraudulent account, as per the report of FBI the losses due to BEC rose to over $1.7 billion in 2019 alone moving further the era starting from 2017 is we can say the age of moderns threats through internet and Artificial intelligence, people have seen supply chain attacks, one of the biggest incident relatedto supply chain attack is related Solarwinds in 2020 which affected multiple US government agencies and corporations and most currently the threats related to deep fake and synthetic identity fraud has become increasingly prevalent, deep fake basically intends to create a realistic visuals or audio, that can be used to spread misinformation, on the other hand, syhtetic identity frauds intends to create fake identities by using real & fake information, in the year 2022 losses due to SIFs accumulated to approx. $1 billion. Hence, as the internet is a global character, India, too, being a formidable part of this globe, felt a seismic shift and need for evolving tactics, making it sine-qua-non for the industries spread in various spectrum to stay up-to-date with latest threats amid the surge in Information technology waves.
Now, moving further let’s have glimpse of evolution in the Legal resposes too both with respect to our country and the global scenario too. Since the technological revolution and the era of internet is a boon for those with the malicious aim to threaten the nation technologically and ultimately economically so this necessitated the formation of Information Technology ministry in the country in the year 1999. India now started with catching up with legal responses to online activities, infractions when it came up with the first cyber legislation, namely, the IT Act, 2000. The Act got amended in 2008 and enforced in 2009 and has responded effectively to the menance of cybercrime in the country. To protect the Critical Information Infrastructure (CII), a new agency, namely, the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (ICERT) is formed, further in the year 2003, CERT was formed to issue instructions to block the websites presumed to be the threat to the country or its people. Over the period of time the crime graph show that the cyber security is becoming a glooming issue and the security of the nation and its people is at stake with numerous threats some of the prominent dangers are; Obscenity, of all the crimes being committed on the internet, obscenity appears as one of the most unethical and having serious moral implications, currently it is popularly named by the name of deepfake videos and audios, it is said that pornography industry has been estimated to contribute about $20 billion annually to the global economy, here when we talk about a global legislaton then here comes into picture 1989 united Nations conventions on the rights of the child which had been considered also by the The Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime in its Preamble itself, it aims at the “protection of society against cybercrime”. Content-Related crimes, “What is illegal offline is illegal online”, some of the invisible agents and measures which are great threat are Hacking, worms this has the characteristics feature of multiplying and spreading over the entire targeted network, their main clients are e-mails or the internet relay chat, further there are viruses are very prevalent and lethal in the day to day chores, they attach themselves either in the diskette or hard disk or games or in the programs, in the series there are agents like Trojan horse, which is a harmless and friendly-looking enemy but which causes erosion or loss, when active, it is one of the very dangerous threat as it can’t be checked or controlled generally until the damage is done, WoZNet Chip, Logic bomb etc.
ESSENCE OF LAW AND ITS RESPONSES
The old adage says that criminal law is the best when it criminalises least. Many thinkers are of the opinion that the 1970s gave rise to the “Computer age” and a federal judge has characterized the computer industry as dynamic and “almost kaleidoscopic”, altering the established legal norms. However it is worth noting that coercive punishments, though originated in the less civilized societies, they are even today considered as a legal price for the wrongs committed by the criminals who cause disturbance in the social equilibrium through their criminal and anti-social conduct. Now to achieve the very motive of the criminal law along with keeping check on the behaviour of the individuals online, old and traditional laws has tried to gear up to cope with emerging and more chronic threats, moreover new technology specific laws are coming up in more advanced societies to meet changing legal needs. Since, cyber threats have extraterritorial aspects so sovereign states needs to draft the laws firstly and most importantly within their jurisdiction and secondly, they should cooperate together so that no one’s integrity is infringed in handling the Cyber related threats as per one’s own convenience.
While prevention is strongly advocated in matter of cybercrimes even at the International level, tackling the repercussions of the threats in this era is the biggest challenge so, we are going to get the insights of some of the law provisions which would be instrumental in getting the culprit and putting the curb on these infractions: * Legal control of cybercrimes; since the internet has global face, therefore it may be called as a junction where all the national laws of various sovereign state met together, and the countries have responded towards this new legal challenge in twofold manner, firstly, the old traditional laws are ipso facto applied and Secondly, failure in the efficient application it hence this made necessary to promote Cybercrime specific legislation and an efficient and proper executive to ensure proper implementation, the countries like US & the UK where legislations has been fast; the judicial interpretationof these provisions is adding to the development of new laws in this areas, *Applying multiple layers of defence, beginning with physical security, followed by management policies and procedures, firewalls and network architecture,* Compliance audits of third-party service providers will also be beneficial,* Securing critical systems by utilizing technology such as protocol-aware filtering and segregation etc. Diving deeper into the legal regime of India there is IT Act as earlier stated but after the amendment in 2008 some new dimensions has been added which now gives an extended list of offences and contraventions punishable under the Act, Section 43 which hitherto concerns about the offence of civil nature but now has civil and criminal consequences, it enumerates the illegal activities on the Net which are done “without the permission of the owner or any person who is in charge of a computer system” sub-sections (a) to (j) are there to deal with the aim to pay damages by way of compensation to the affected person in case it is done and if the same acts are done either dishonestly or fraudulently they are termed as computer related offence and are now punished under the substituted Section 66 of the Act, Also, The right to privacy is one of the fundamental right guaranteed to the citizens, Indian constitution however does not postulate express provisions with regard to right to privacy, our active judiciary has carved out in recognizing the significance of these rights and elevated this as the fundamental right by due interpretation of law and adding them into the realm of “Right to life” Article 19 (1) (a) courts have read the right to privacy under the fundamental right of “Freedom of speech and expression”, After the Second world war, the concept of privacy gained a momentous recginition in the international instruments, Article 12 of the UDHR protects the fundamental right to privacy, stating that no person should arbitrary interference into their life, home, family, correspondence and ensuring that everyone have the right to legal protection against such interference. Hence, The International community along with our judicial and legislative system are working and taking crucial steps from the very beginning to fundamentally protect the person’s right in cyberspace, by ensuring establishment of effective workable system for the cyber administration and formulating laws and regulations now and then to ensure that no one’s hard labour or personal information will not be at stake by the unethical action of the fraudsters.
CONCLUSION
Many academicians and thinkers have done commendable job to make us understand about the ambiguous nature and meaning of the term cyber crime but unfortunately owing to the dynamic nature of it only because of development in the tech and also changes in the scope of threats caused by those technological development it is a very challenging task to circumscribe the term Cyber threat under a fixed gamut, Thus, it is not easy to depict them under straightjacket type of classification. Cybercrimes are species of terrestrial crime, problems and challenges that are made are so different from those of traditional crimes that traditional legal responses are inadequate to cope with the challenges thrown open by them, it is suggested to contribute to a better understanding of the crimes happening in the cyberspace, there should strict and concrete procedural criminal laws relating to investigation, prosecution and trial of the cybercrime as liberal old laws are insufficient to tackle the new and even more destructive offences of the cyber age in this era of Arificial Intelligence. Further, the administrations within their jurisdictions must organize the awareness drives in order to educate the users regarding the harms and threats impeding the citizens in their growth and progress, the most challenged class in the enforcement of legal responses relating to cybercrimes are the law-enforcers or the investigators, and so we should also utilize the opportunity to create better systems and traditions of policing in the cyberspace, for the future, the legal agencies must educate the police to enforce the laws made regarding the cyber related threats in the technical manner.
By and large considering the subject of Cyber related threats as a global worry considering the fact that cybercrimes are silent in nature, global in character, create high societal impact and in these era of one and only only internet it is easy task for the perpetrators,So as per the need of the hour the global village along with its institutions and professional groups like International police Organisation, National Police Organisations, Council of Europe, the Asia-Pacific Economic cooperation, G-7 and G-8 groups, and United Nations Organisation have taken wide range of initiatives and continuously strive to be ahead from the wrongdoers by taking stricter steps to combat cyber Security Threats.
REFERENCES
- Talat Fatima; Cyber crimes; third edition 2021, Reprint 2024
- GP Sahoo; New legal Dimensions of Cybercrime; Jan. 2017
- Anastasiya Novikava; The evolution of cyber threats; NordLayer; July 4, 2024
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