Cyber crimes are recently developed on a rapid scale due to wide and deep penetration of internet. The IT (Information Technology) Act 2000, and its amendment in 2008 along with several other policies and laws are unable to provide protection to people from cyber crime in large population country like India. We need to create awareness and capacity building among masses for achieving efficient and effective results. This paper contributes in helping to understand the capability of current laws in dealing with cyber crime, their loopholes and what is the way forward to fix the loopholes so that a better crimefree society could be established.
KEYWORDS: Digital literate, Online Shopping, Social Media, Online Privacy.
Introduction Where the risk is low and rate of return investment is high, people always take the advantage of this type of situation and due to this cyber crime takes shape1. Moreover, the invisible nature of crime makes it difficult to find criminal, due to this cyber crime is increasing day by day. In India, there are several factors which are responsible for increasing the rate of cyber crime such as widespread poverty, huge unemployment, eagerness to make quick money among youth, lack of awareness among people, loopholes in laws, lack of trained officials in investigating agencies, etc. Therefore, law enforcing agencies must have proper training and awareness regarding different forms of cyber crime. For the same purpose Information Technology Act was enacted in 2000 and it was later amended in 2008 for incorporating certain changes of cyber space.
What Is Cyber Crime?
Cybercrime is any criminal activity that involves a computer, networked device or a network. While most cybercrimes are carried out in order to generate profit for the cybercriminals, some cybercrimes are carried out against computers or devices directly to damage or disable them, while others use computers or networks to spread malware, illegal information, images or other materials.
Emergence of Information Technology Act, 2000
Cyber crimes are recently developed on a rapid scale due to wide and deep penetration of internet. People to fulfill their interest sometimes use illegal and dishonest means. Cyber crime is preferred by these people due to its inherent advantage like crime could be committed anywhere in the world by just sitting in the room. Rapid increase in online shopping, wide use of social media like facebook, whatsapp, etc , online banking, etc is the basic cause of cyber crime exponential growth in last few years. In spite of this people are hesitant to report cyber crime to authorities. Even if someone complaint then cyber cell of police is hardly efficient enough to resolve such issues. This is a very complicated situation and required to be dealt with immediate and concrete action
