Cyber crime in Himachal

Cybercrime, also called computer crime, the use of a computer as an instrument to further illegal ends, such as committing fraud, trafficking in child pornography and intellectual property, stealing identities, or violating privacy. Cybercrime, especially through the Internet, has grown in importance as the computer has become central to commerce, entertainment, and government.

Due to lack of information security various cyber crime arises. Hacking the login password in govt. department of state and asking ransomware in return, ATM card fraud, illegally getting bank account information on behalf of bank, illegal mail on behalf of RBI bank to give account number, fake videos , and information on social media are some examples of cyber crimes which are rising high in the state. So govt. has taken some initiative to tackle these issues.
Most cybercrime is an attack on information about individuals, corporations, or governments. Although the attacks do not take place on a physical body, they do take place on the personal or corporate virtual body, which is the set of informational attributes that define people and institutions on the Internet. In other words, in the digital age our virtual identities are essential elements of everyday life: we are a bundle of numbers and identifiers in multiple computer databases owned by governments and corporations.
Cybercrime ranges across a spectrum of activities. obtained digital information to blackmail a firm or individual, crime of identity theft. transaction-based crimes such as fraud, trafficking in child pornography, digital piracy, money laundering, and counterfeiting etc.

STEPS TAKEN TO CONTROL CYBER CRIME IN HIMACHAL BY GOVERNMENT

Cyber Crimes are a new class of crimes to Himachal rapidly expanding due to extensive use of internet. With the evolution of the Internet, along came another revolution of crime where the perpetrators commit acts of crime and wrongdoing on the World Wide Web. Internet crime takes many faces and is committed in diverse fashions. The number of users and their diversity in their makeup has exposed the Internet to everyone. Some criminals in the Internet have grown up understanding this superhighway of information, unlike the older generation of users. This is why Internet crime has now become a growing problem in the Himachal also .Some crimes committed on the Internet have been exposed to the world and some remain a mystery up until they are perpetrated against someone or some company.

1. Implementation of IT policy, 2000 so that with the enhancement and improvement of Information technology sector there must be steps taken to tackle the cyber issues. By Creating cyber laws Himachal Pradesh is committed to ensuring that the overall local regime is in consonance with the requirements of transactions and interactions in the electronic medium. The State Government shall examine all the state level legislations and statutes so as to ensure the necessary harmonization, with the above objective in mind. The overall objective is to provide a transparent, simple and enforceable set of laws, which shall facilitate e-business and all other IT enabled activities.

2.Himachal launches State Cyber Crime Police Station to deal with high-tech cyber criminals, digitally inaugurated State Cyber Crime Police Station at the State Police Headquarter in Shimla.The main objective of this Cyber Crime Police Station is to deal with increasing crime based on misuse of information technology (Cyber Space) by the High-tech criminals, The facility will be provided necessary technical assistance in apprehending the suspects and collection of digital evidence on all issue of cyber crime. It will investigate and register all serious cyber offenses i.e. hacking of government websites and its data, prevention and detection of cyber terrorism & financing all types of cyber fraud cases, identifying communal tension modules etc. Cyber Crime Police Station will also liaise and undertake the investigation of cases of cyber crime having an impact in national and international level along with the nodal agencies of these organizations for prevention, detection, and investigation of cyber crime. The Cyber Police Station will also be responsible for creating general awareness among the masses to prevent them from falling victim to the hands of high and cyber tech criminals.

3. The centre for cyber security for investigation and innovation will be set up at the state Police Headquarters in Shimla. Best technical support from the entire state will be brought under one roof to develop synergy and keep constant vigil on cyber space. The centre would enable the police to put a tab on the mischievous elements in the virtual world invading private cyber space of individuals, government agencies, industrial houses and banks by indulging in hacking, phishing, cyber terror, cash cards electronic thefts, industrial spying, web defacements, stocking and publication of obscene contents. “More than 350 cases of cybercrime were registered last year, most of them related to hacking of email and social media accounts, stocking through mobile phones, ATM frauds, obscene messages and mobile phone thefts.

4.Awareness campaign : The objective of the programme is to educate school and colleges students,parents and prevent them to fall prey to cyber crimes. People need to be educated because the dimensions of cyber crime are limitless and borderless. In majoritycases people fall victim to allurements send to their email id's and people forward their bank accounts. So state government start campaign program to educate college and greying age population not to fall in the trap of cyber crime.

SUGGESTIONS 

We are living in the 21st Century in the country which is in a developing state, where the technology is getting advance and replacing the job of the humans. With the involvement of the internet using the online crime rate is also increasing consequently, for which there are legal remedies available with the victim. But we have seen that the cyber-crime case files are increasing more than that of the solved cases, this is due to the carelessness of the people and lack of the cyber experts who can handle these case. Therefore, we need better training institutes as well as a compulsory branch of Cyber-security subject which will help in solving the cyber-cases and will raise the trust towards the security, but we can try to secure ourselves –
• If we all take care of our own security by not providing the loopholes to the attackers in the social media,
• by not getting trap in social engineering,
• securing our data by giving the limit in the permissions to the websites,
• not using the unsecured websites,
• by not disclosing smart-phone locks,ATM card’s pin etc., then there are fewer chances of compromise with the data.

By: Pooja Sharda