Indian case laws.

Pune Citibank Mphasis call cent

er fraud
Some employees of an Indian call center fraudulently transferred US$ 3,50,000 from the
Citibank account of four US costumers, by dishonestly obtaining the pin codes of their bank
accounts through internet. Later on the police froze the account in which the money was
transferred.
This case illuminates the need of firming up the security system of all the companies which
handles such secretive information about the citizens. It is very important to put a bar on
these kind of cybercrimes as the source of this crime is too remote to trace.

State of Tamil Naidu v. Suhas katti

In this case obscene and defamatory messages about a divorced woman were being
exchanged through email and Yahoo messenger. This further resulted in annoying phone calls
to the lady. The lady filed a complaint and the police successfully traced the accused in
Mumbai through the Internet Protocol address (IP address) of the false email account made
by him.

Andhra Pradesh Tax Case

The Vigilance Department of the state raided the house of a plastic firm owner and recovered
22 crores of unaccounted cash. The accused submitted 6000 vouchers to prove the legitimacy
of the unaccounted cash. The laptop of the businessman was confiscated and it was
discovered that all the vouchers presented by his were fake. His laptop also contained fake
receipts and records which revealed that he was running five businesses under the guise of
one company and used fake electronic records to save tax.

Nasscom v. Ajay Sood and others.

In a landmark judgment in the case of National Association of Software and Service
Companies vs Ajay Sood & Others, High Court declared `phishing' on the internet to be an
illegal act, entailing an injunction and recovery of damages.
Elaborating on the concept of 'phishing', in order to lay down a precedent in India, the court
stated that it is a form of internet fraud where a person pretends to be a legitimate association,
such as a bank or an insurance company in order to extract personal data from a customer
such as access codes, passwords, etc. Personal data so collected by misrepresenting the
identity of the legitimate party is commonly used for the collecting party's advantage. The
court ordered Ajay Sood to pay 1.6 million to the plaintiff as damages.
Through this landmark judgement the court held phishing as an offence under Indian laws
and held it as a misrepresentation made in the course of trade leading to confusion as to the
source and origin of the email causing immense harm.

Cyber Terrorism
According to NATO (2008), cyberterrorism is a cyber attack using or exploiting computer or
communication networks to cause sufficient destruction to generate fear or intimidate a
society into an ideological goal1.Cyber terrorism is an act of intimidating or coercing the
government or its people to further their political or religious objectives. It is an illicit threat
of attacks against the computers or computer networks and the information stored in them.
The impact of cyber terrorism involves violence against the persons or property and cause
enough harm to generate fear among the citizens. Further, the attacks of cyber terrorism leads
to death or bodily injury, explosions, or severe economic loss. In the contemporary time it has
become very relaxed for the terrorists for gratifying their purpose as the advanced cyber
world is somehow acting as an aid for the development of their purpose. The terrorist
organisations have started recruiting computer experts and hackers to remove the
technological constraints of the cyber world. These experts provide the terrorists with the
confidential information, blueprints, maps, important statistics which eventually acts as a
great assistance to surmount their intentions.
Apart from the attacks, the cyber world has also provided a great support in preventing and
monitoring these attacks. The internet also provides certain information to the government
which helps them in decoding many terrorist communications. A lot many of the terrorist
attacks are decoded much before date of their execution due to the advanced technological
development in the cyber world. Despite all the pros and cons the online world has more
harm than good regarding cyber terrorism.

1 NATO, (2008). Cyber defence concept MC0571. Brussels, Belgium.