According to a recent report,we
have received,data from almost all Pakistani banks has been reportedly hacked,"
FIA Cybercrimes Director retired Capt.Mohammad Shoaib said in November,2018.
According to the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, 2016, the purpose of the
legislation is “to prevent unauthorized acts with respect to information systems
and provide for related offences as well as mechanisms for their investigation,
prosecution, trial and international cooperation … .”
On August 11, 2016, Pakistan's lower house, the National Assembly,passed a
controversial cybercrime law called the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act,
2016.The Senate had unanimously passed the law, with a number of amendments, in
July 2016.
Although,Cyber crime refers to any criminal act dealing with computers and
networks.More than 30 million of Pakistan’s 190 million people use the
internet,mainly on mobile telephones,according to digital rights organization
Bytes for All.
Cybercrime has increased manifold in Pakistan.According to cybercrime unit,62
cases were reported to the unit in 2010, 87 in 2011 and 75 in 2014. More than
312 cases were registered in different categories of cybercrime. It has much
increased compared to 2013 and 2014. A saying goes: “nip the evil in the bud.”
All stakeholders must sit together and join heads to chalk out a strategy to
control the menace.
New technologies also create few new criminal opportunities.The “cyber criminal”
sounds like a term to be applied to someone from a William Gibson book, and yet
is all too real, and on a day to day basis wreaks havoc in our increasingly
online world. In April 2001,the US Government responded to this threat by
announcing a $25 million initiative involving the creation of a National
High-Tech Crime Unit to counter the growing use of the Internet for criminal
activity.The online world is becoming increasingly vulnerable to criminal
activity with 43% of the public identifying cyber crime as a ‘problem’.
An important aspect of cybercrime is its nonlocal character:actions can occur in
jurisdictions separated by vast distances.This poses severe problems for law
enforcement since previously local or even national crimes now require
international cooperation.For example,if a person accesses child pornography
located on a computer in a country that does not ban child pornography, is that
individual committing a crime in a nation where such materials are illegal?Where
exactly does cybercrime take place?Cyberspace is simply a richer version of the
space where a telephone conversation takes place,somewhere between the two
people having the conversation.As a planet-spanning network,the Internet offers
criminals multiple hiding places in the real world as well as in the network
itself.However, just as individuals walking on the ground leave marks that a
skilled tracker can follow,cybercriminals leave clues as to their identity and
location.In order to follow such clues across national boundaries, though,
international cybercrime treaties must be ratified.
On November 23, 2001, the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime was signed
by 30 states. The convention came into effect in 2004.Additional
protocols,covering terrorist activities and racist and xenophobic
cybercrimes,were proposed in 2002 and came into effect in 2006.In
addition,various national laws,such as the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001, have
expanded law enforcement’s power to monitor and protect computer networks.
Cyberterrorism focuses upon the use of the Internet by nonstate actors to affect
a nation’s social,economic and technological infrastructure.Since the September
11 attacks of 2001,public awareness of the threat of cyberterrorism has grown
dramatically.
In 2015 the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) released a report on
identity theft;in the previous year almost 1.1 million Americans had their
identities fraudulently used to open bank,credit card,or utility accounts.The
report also stated that another 16.4 million Americans were victimized by
account theft, such as use of stolen credit cards and automatic teller machine
(ATM) cards.It is estimated that cybercrime costs businesses more than $12.7
million annually in the United States alone.
Despite these challenges, cybercrime is increasing at a geometric rate.There’s
roughly 900 phishing attempts detected per financial institution, and more than
9,000 attempts detected per technology company on average.Phishing sites are
mimicking all the major technology players as well.Google,Apple,Facebook,and
Yahoo, are all phishing targets, as well as Dropbox,where insidious phishing
sites could actually dupe users into uploading their files to cybercriminals.
On average, 85,000 malicious IPs are launched every day, bringing the average
reputation score of all URLs worldwide to 65 percent.It is a worldwide endeavor,
with large concentrations in the United States, Russia, and throughout Asia.The
result is that in one year, users have a 30% chance of falling for a zero-day
phishing attack.
Cybercrime is not restricted to the desktop alone;Mobile devices have
proliferated in recent years, and with them viruses, malware, and phishing
scams. Because of its open marketplace, the Android platform is home to a
variety of malware in particular.
Prevention is always better than cure.It is always better to take certain
precaution while operating the net.Saileshkumar Zarkar, technical advisor and
network security consultant to the Mumbai Police Cyber crime Cell, advocates the
5P mantra for online security: Precaution, Prevention, Protection, Preservation
and Perseverance.A citizen should keep in mind the following things
Firstly,To prevent cyber stalking avoid disclosing any information pertaining to
one self.This is as good as disclosing your identity to strangers.Secondly,Never
send your credit card number to any site that is not secured,to guard against
frauds.Thirdly,Always keep a watch on the sites that your children are accessing
to prevent any kind of harassment or depravation in children.Fourthly,It is
better to use a security programme that gives control over the cookies and send
information back to the site as leaving the cookies unguarded might prove
fatal.Fifthly,Use of firewalls may be beneficial.
Lastly,Capacity of human mind is unfathomable.It is not possible to eliminate
cyber crime from the cyber space.It is quite possible to check them.History is
the witness that no legislation has succeeded in totally eliminating crime from
the globe.The only possible step is to make people aware of their rights and
duties and further making the application of the laws more stringent to check
crime.