Cyber Crimes Against Women

 Cyber Crimes against Women - Instances, Inconsistencies in Law and Remedies Proposed

ABSTRACT

The digital age is advancing at a livid pace. It is a rare sight nowadays to see anyone without carrying a mobile phone or using any such electronic device almost on a daily basis. However, it is a matter of growing concern that the cyber space is becoming a particularly desolate and venomous area for a large number of users, more particularly women. It is, thus, most ironic that the digital domain, considered to the most secure and theft-proof depository of confidential information has been targeted by, violated and compromised by perverse elements more than any other medium. In this paper, I tend to scrutinize the various methods through which cyber criminals operate with a particular objective to outrage, demean and libel the modesty of women, and/or, try to infiltrate their financially or socially confidential credentials. Furthermore, I would try to elucidate a handful of measures that can be carried out, both on individual as well as collective level, to mitigate this hazard against the interests of women.

INTRODUCTION

The magnitude of crimes against women anywhere in the nation, albeit taking the national capital as a reference point, are touching unprecedented levels in the recent times. Women safety is an issue that has been most profoundly tended to by the Delhi Government, by virtue of numerous empowerment programmers, better transportation service, providing safer college and work environs, but as the positives progress, the negatives don’t seem to lag behind much behind. What is emerging as a new dimension of critical threat to the infrastructure of private and collective security is cybercrime. Internet, being a vast, unregulated and unmanageable space of ignominious possibilities, carries with itself a very sure and hazardous peril of being used for malicious and unethical intents

Email spamming / bombing

The advent of electronic mail has brought with itself a wide array of receiver-centric cyber-attacks that are geared towards unloading a heavy amount of mail and messaging data into the communication system of the receiver, typically without his approved or intended consent. The mails sent can be of malicious or promotional intent also, if sent with the purpose of endorsement or selling. However, some threads carry the potential risk of being viruses or cloning soft wares masked under the pretext of lucrative money-making schemes or lottery winning claims. The spurious mail usually come attached with spyware or malware viruses, programmed to elicit confidential information from the source. The most obvious way to spot a spammer/scammer is to identify mails from unknown sources, mails containing overly- unbelievable profit claims, multiple mails containing almost the same body template. Section 66A(c) of the Information and Technology (Amendment) Act, 2008 is the de-facto legislation dealing with cyber spamming in India.

Hacking

The first one, being a potentially dangerous form, propels the hacker to seep into confidential databases of both financial and miscellaneous importance, extract valuable information and disseminate the same to other parties or to himself. Financial thefts, espionage, security exploits etc. are typical examples. The other form, however, refers to less severe, albeit equally malicious and destructive category of cyber breach wherein the perp. Gains accesses to the database of the host, jeopardize its controls and use the opportunity to propagate smear libels about the host. 

Hacking and cyber breach comes under the ambit of Section 43 and 66 of the IT Act, 2000, red as follows- 

• “Under section 43, a simple civil offense where a person without permission of the owner accesses the computer and extracts any data or damages the data contained therein will come under civil liability. The cracker shall be liable to pay compensation to the affected people. Under the ITA 2000, the maximum cap for compensation was fine at Rs. One crore. However in the amendment made in 2008, this ceiling was removed. Section 43A was added in the amendment in 2008 to include corporate shed where the employees stole information from the secret files of the company 

• “Section 66B covers punishment for receiving stolen computer resource or information. The punishment includes imprisonment for one year or a fine of rupees one lakh or both. Mensrea is an important ingredient under section 66A. Intention or the knowledge to cause wrongful loss to others i.e. the existence of criminal intention and the evil mind i.e. concept of mensrea, destruction, deletion, alteration or diminishing in value or utility of data are all the major ingredients to bring any act under this Section.

Preventive and Remedial measures 

Modification of the IT Act

The Act, however, conveys the liability of criminal apprehensions specifically in cases related to cyber stalking and defamation of women to other legislation. Section 354D of the IPC for instance, is inevitably attached to the Act when imposing criminal liability upon a stalker, taking away the stand-alone character of the Act. Furthermore, it is a highly debated matter that is reducing the quantum of punishments for majority of cybercrimes, by way of “higher monetary fines” and “reducing punishments” a fair method of strengthening the system. Provided that a plethora of apparent cybercrimes like cyber defamation, phishing, cracking etc. already do not find expressly specific representation in the Act.

Setting up of cyber security cells and tribunals

In the wake of recently growing number of cases of exploitation against women and other vulnerable sections, the government has given nod for incorporation for various schemes to detect and curb cybercrimes and other offences. The most prominent one amongst them is the Cyber Crime Prevention against Women and Children (CCWC). A comprehensive scheme towards protecting the interests of female internet users, CCWC will prompt the creation of a national repository and complaint portal which would cater to the complaints of Child Pornography (CP), Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) or sexually explicit content such as Rape/Gang Rape (CP/RGR) content and other cybercrimes such as mobile crimes, online and social media crimes, online financial frauds, ransomware, hacking, crypto currency crimes and online cyber trafficking. 

Preventive measures on a personal level-

Since the cyber security regime India is neither adequately effective, nor wholly codified, it ultimately falls to the user to watch his back while surfing a vast and unregulated domain. These measure may, however seem to be standard and gender-neutral, yet one can’t overlook the fact that women are indeed soft and easy targets for criminals in their pursuits online. Certain codes of basic netiquette are an absolutely essential to keep cyber stalkers at bay. Keeping a balanced amount of social contacts would help in reducing the possibility of encountering a potential stalker/scammer, as most of the shady contacts are made through the medium of internet. Installing an antivirus in one’s system is a reliable and efficient way to ward off any obnoxious or harmful communications, such as spam mail, viruses, spyware/malware programmes etc.

Also, since the internet is a space of overflowing information, it is vital to make sure that some anonymous third party don’t reach there without your consent. Accessing social media/ interfaces involving money on unfamiliar or suspicious devices should be strictly abstained from. Nor, should the confidential information, such as passwords, usernames be, disclosed with any unreliable source. Awareness with matters related to cyber security should be more compared to other conventional crimes due to the fact that this new modus operandi of criminals have relatively lesser apprehension rate, with considerably higher damaging factor.