Hacking

Dear Sir,

That is very important Query. The word hacking has not been used in the ITA 2000, but under section 16 of the act, central Government is empowered to prescribed the security procedures under the act.

Under chapter  IX Section 43 penalty for demage to computer, computer system has been made to pay damages by way of compensation not exceeding one crore rupees.( See whether there is any amendment with regard to one crore damages, as there was lots of discussion saying that it is too much)

                                        Number of vulnerabilities arise throughout the internet, in addition to the interception of transmissions and rogue Java programs. Denial of service attacks involve overloading a server to keep other users from gaining access,viruses can be transmitted as attachments to e-mail , password can be stolen or guessed at, allowing unauthorized access. Once hackers have entered a system and start to vandalize the system they may not be detected by the system administrators.As such number of measures have been adopted through out the world. See the explanation to section 43 of the Act.

SIR,

MOST OF THE CRIMINAL APPEAL MATTERS BEFORE THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA ARE DISMISSED FOR DELAY IN PREFERRING THE APPEAL.

WHETHER THIS ASPECT IS CORRECT WHILE THE CASES ARE DEALING WITH THE LIVES OF THE PERSONS AGGRIEVED

Thanks,Mr.Assumi

Dear Sir,

Hacking has been dealt with under S.66 of the IT Act,2000. Section 66 states as under;

Section 66. Hacking with Computer System. -

(1) Whoever with the intent of cause or knowing that is likely to cause wrongful loss or damage to the public or any person destroys or deletes or alters any information residing in a computer resource or diminishes its value or utility or affects it injuriously by any means, commits hacking.

(2) Whoever commits hacking shall be punished with imprisonment up to three years, or with fine which may extend up to two lakh rupees, or with both.



Hence for the Offence of Hacking, three essentials must be present;

a). Existence of an INTENTION to cause wrongful loss or damage to the public or any person.

b). Existence of KNOWLEDGE that such act is likely to cause wrongful loss/ damage to public or any person.

c). Existence of deletion, or destruction, or alteration, or diminuition in the value of the information of the diminuition of the utility of the information stored in the computer system.

The term "Hacking" under the IT Act gives wide scope for its interpretation and not only inculdes virus introduction, denial of service etc. covered under S.43, but also non-cyber crimes such as physical destruction of Computer Network/ System causing damage to information or conspiracy or fraudulent acts of abetting/ inducing any other person to cause the destruction of the information without the knowledge of its owner, in the computer system. The method/s for achieving this can be by "any means."

Section 43 states as follows;



S. 43. Penalty for damage to computer, computer system, etc.-

If any person without permission of the owner or any other person who is in charge of a computer, computer system or computer network,-

accesses or secures access to such computer, computer system or computer network downloads, copies or extracts any data, computer data base information from such computer, computer system or computer network including information or data held or stored in any removable storage medium,

Introduces or causes to be introduced any computer contaminant or computer virus into any computer, computer system or computer network;



damages or causes to be damaged and computer, computer system or computer network, data, computer database or any other programmes residing in such computer, computer system or computer network;

disrupts or causes disruption of any computer, computer system or computer network;



denies or causes the denial of access to any person authorised to access any computer, computer system or computer network by any means;



provides any assistance to any person to facilitate access to a computer, computer system or computer network in contravention of the provisions of this Act, rules or regulations made thereunder;

charges the services availed of by a person to the account of another person by tampering with or manipulating any computer, computer system or compute network he shall be liable to pay damages by way of compensation not exceeding one crore rupees to the person so affected.

Explanation.-For the purposes of this section.- (i) "computer contaminant" means any set of computer instructions that are designed -

(a) to modify, destroy, record, transmit date or programme residing within a computer, computer system or computer network; or

(b) by any means to usurp the normal operation of the computer, compute system, or computer network;

(ii) "computer database" means a representation of information, knowledge, facts, concepts or instructions in text, image, audio, video that are being prepared or have been prepare in a formalised manner or have been produced by a computer, computer system or computer network and are intended for use in a computer, computer system or computer network;

(iii) "computer virus" means any computer instruction, information, data or programme that destroys, damages, degrades adversely affects the performance of a computer resources or attaches itself to another itself to another computer resources and operates when a programme, date or instruction is executed or some other even takes place in that computer resource;



(iv) "damage" means to destroy, alter, delete, add, modify or re-arrange any computer resource by any means.

To invoke S.43, there need not be an intention to cause damage or knowledge that any act would cause damage. Thus even accidental unauthorised access to a computer resource would invite this provision. It even includes hacking as under S.66.



For the offence/ cyber crime of Hacking as per IT Act, both S.66 & S.43 can be invoked and concurrently applied as S.66 is a Prosecution case while S.43 is a case instituted by the victim & this does not result in double jeopardy.



Regards!

it has more serious implications on secrecy of data too.