IT Act to be amended to deal with cyber-terrorism news
05 December 2008

Hyderabad: The centre will amend the Information Technology Act, 2000 to put it in line with European Cyber Convention. This will enable the government to effectively deal with online data security, data privacy, identity theft, cyber-terrorism, child pornography, Spam, phishing and other online frauds.

Pending for two years now, the amendment bill will be finally taken up by Parliament in the winter session that begins next week, said Gulshan Rai director-general of the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), a nodal agency for the security and protection of critical infrastructure.

''We are in the process of amending our legal framework to address issues posed by new technologies and new crimes being observed in the cyberspace," Rai said, speaking at the Internet Governance Forum 2008 in Hyderabad recently. "The Parliament standing committee has made a number of suggestions to make the legal framework of the IT Act 2006 more comprehensive. Based on the suggestions, we have made amendments in the Act.

"These amendments deal with data security and data privacy, identity theft, cyber terrorism, child pornography, Spam, phishing and online frauds,'' he added.

According to Rai the biggest challenge was in training police and judicial officials to collect, analyse and present digital evidence in courts. He said the government was working in this direction.

After the amendment, corporate bodies will have to implement best security practices to secure data collected by them while providing services. Any leakage of the data of their account will result in payment of compensation to the victim, he said.

Rai said that the number of cyber attacks, including viruses, worms and frauds, was rising by over 15 per cent per annum while some were doubling in a year.

Quoting reports by online security firm Symantec and consulting firm Pricewaterhouse Coopers, he said on an average spam mails account for about 80 per cent of the total email traffic in the world and the situation was no different in India, Rai said on the second day of the Internet Governance Forum 2008 here on Thursday.

He said that a survey conducted by Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC) and CERT-In showed that 57 per cent of the organisations experienced compromised systems in 2007, a two-fold increase from the year 2000.

''Technology-oriented indicators clearly reflect that a monthly percentage of personal computers infected by a virus in the country has grown from about one per cent in 2001 to about 17 per cent in 2007. About 350 systems in a day get compromised and incorporated into Bots he said. Internet bots, also known as web robots, are software applications that run automated tasks over the Internet.

Rai said the number of phishing cases too was rising among Indian banks. About 8 cases of phishing are being reported on an average daily. And, most of these cases are source of financial cyber frauds, he added.

The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) has called for collaboration and cooperation among countries to make Internet free from cyber crime. Voicing concern over the growing cyber crimes and misuse of Internet by terrorists, the world's largest Internet congregation formed by the Union Nations Secretary General said mapping exercises of cyber security and trust between the countries will be uplifted.

 Rai said, ''There is a need to exchange information without any hindrances among the nations and among organisations to track down criminals. Global alliances and exchange of information have to be established for attaining safety, security and stability of the Internet,'' he said.


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IT Act to be amended to deal with cyber-terrorism