TYPES OF CYBER CRIMES
Submitted by – Payal Nagar

What is cyber crime?
 Cyber crime or computer crime means any illegal activity which is commited
using computer or internet and that activity is prohibited under law.
 Cyber crime is defined as a crime in which a computer is the object of the crime
(hacking, phishing, spamming) or is used as a tool to commit an offence (child
pornography, hate crimes).
 After the implementation of IT Act in 2000 onwards cyber crime was prohibited.

Types of cyber crimes -:
 Cyber Stalking
 Pornography
 Hacking and Cracking
 Computer /Cyber Terrorism

Cyber Stalking
 Stalking generally means a harassing behaviour which one person exhibits
towards the others.
 Stalking may comprise of following a person, appearing at a persons home or
place of business, making harassing phone calls, leaving written messages or
objects.

Nature of cyber stalking
 Computer or cyber stalking is one of the very popular means by which the cyber
stalker exploits the internet and the windows operating system in order to
assume control over the computer of the user.
 Email account of the user may also be used as a tool for cyber stalking. Access
to an email account of an innocent user may be gained by the hacker and that
address may be used to send messages that may be threatening or offensive.
 Online stalkers may post insulting messages on electronic bulletin boards signed
with the email address of the person being harassed or statements about the
victim.

Punishment for cyber stalking
 Section 66(A) of Indian Information Technology Act, 2008 penalizes sending false and
offensive messages through communication services.
 Any person who sends, by the means of a computer resource or a communication
devices –
(A) Any information that is grossly effective or has menacing character, or
(B) Any information which he /she knows to be false, but for the purpose of causing
annoyance, inconvenience, danger, obstruction, insult, criminal intimidation, hatred or
ill will, persistently makes by making use of such computer resource or a
communication device,
(C) Any electronic mail or electronic mail messages for the purpose of causing
annoyance or inconvenience or to deceive or to mislead the addressee or recipient
about the origin of such messages,
shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to 3 years
with fine.

Pornography
 Cyber Pornography
 Child Pornography

 Cyber pornography is the act of using cyberspace to create, display, distribute,
import or publish pornography or obscene materials, especially materials
depicting children engaged in sexual acts with adults. Cyber pornography is a
criminal offense classified as causing harm to persons.
 Child pornography means to make ,produce, posses, distribute and sale
pornographic materials that exploits minor childs (under the age of 18 ).
Increasingly child pornography laws are being utilized to punish use of
computer technology and the internet to obtain, share and distribute pornography
material involving childrens.

Punishment for cyber pornography
 Under section 67 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 makes the following
acts punishable with imprisonment upto 3 years and fine upto 5 lakhs :
Publication – it includes uploading on website, whats app group or any other
digital portal where third parties can have access to such content.
Transmission – it includes seding obscene photos or images to any person via email,
messaging ,whats app or any other form of digital media.
 Section 67 (A) of the Information Technology Act makes
publication ,transmission and causing to be transmitted and piblished in
electronic form any material containing sexually explicit act or conduct,
punishable with imprisonment upto 5 years and fine upto 10 lakhs.

Hacking and Cracking
 Hacking is the act of finding the possible entry points that exist in a computer system or a
computer network finally entering into them.
 Hacking is usually done to gain unauthorized access to a computer system or
network ,either to harm the system or to steal sensitive information available on the
computer.
 Cracking on the other hand is a kind of hacking in which the person who cracks the security
of the computer can download the information along with that it can modify the data
also.

Types of hacking
 Website Hacking-: Hacking a website means taking control over a web server
and its associated software.
 Network Hacking-: Hacking a network means gathering information about a
network by using tools like telnet, ping, tracert etc with intent to harm the
network system and hamper its operation.
 Email Hacking-: It includes getting unauthorized access on an email account
and using it without the consent ot its owner.
 Password Hacking-: This is the process of recovering secret passwords from
data that has been stored in or transmitted by a computer system.
 Computer Hacking-:This is the process of stealing computer ID and password
by applying hacking methods and getting unauthorized access to computer
system.
 Ethical Hacking-:Ethical hacking involves finding weaknesses in a computer or
network system for testing purpose anf finally getting them fixed. Ethical
hacking is legal in india.

Punishment for Hacking
 Chapter Xl Section 66 of IT ACT, 2000 particularly deals with the act of hacking.
 Section 66(1) defines a hack as any person, dishonestly or fraudulently does any
act referred to in section 43 is called hacking and, section 66(2) prescribes the
punishment for it. Hacking is punishable offense in India with imprisonment
upto 3 years, or with fine upto 2 lakh rupees or both.
 Chapter Xl Section 43 of IT ACT, 2000 prescribes a penalty for the damage to
computer or computer system.
 Chapter Xl Section 65 of the said act makes tampering with computer source
documents an offence.

Cyber Terrorism
Cyber terrorism means doing unlawful things, through internet for political purposes to
create hate in minds of people. It is any act which is done through cyberspace to create
a threat in the minds of people or to breach the sovereignty, unity, or integrity of a
country, or to provoke people or group of the people against the government.

Punishment for cyber terrorism
 Section 66 (f) provides punishment for cyber terrorism . Whoever -
(A) With intent to threaten the unity, integrity, security or sovereignty of India or to strike terror
in people or any section of the people by-
(i) Denying or cause the denial of access to any person authorized to access computer
resource or,
(B) Knowingly or intentionally gaining access to any computer resource and revealing the
restricted information which may be used to cause injury to the intrests of the integrity of India,
security of the state, friendly relations with foreign states, public order and decency or morality
of the country.
Whoever commits or conspires to commit cyber terrorism or above mentioned acts shall be
punishable with imprisonment which may extend to imprisonment for life.

Some more computer crimes are-:
 Spoofing
A Spoofing attack is a situation in which a person or program successfully
masquerades (mask) as another by falsifying data, to gain Iligitimate advantage.
• Email address spoofing
• IP address spoofing
 Phishing
Phishing is the fraudulent attempt to obtain sensitive information such as
username, passwords or credit card details, often for malicious reasons.
Phishing is typically carried out by email spoofing or instant messaging and it often
directs users to enter personal information at a fake website, which looks like the
ligitimate site, the only difference being the URL of the website in concern.

 Email bombing
No. of mails (around 1000) at a time are send continuously at someones computers
system or server, so that traffic can be created. Due to this the authorized person
not be able to reach the real information. It is also a kind of Denial of Service attack
(DOS).