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According to recent reports, it has been stated by the Ministry of State for Electronics and Information Technology that India witnessed approximately 13.91 lakh cyber security incidents in 2022. The recent data also says that the situation is pretty alarming and instigates the requirement of strict and strong cyber security measures so that it becomes easy to provide an envelope as security protection against these potential threats. Additionally, the importance of protecting digital data can be seen in safeguarding information from any kind of loss through recovery and backup.  Providing proper security so that the integrity of the data can be maintained from manipulation or any kind of Malware. This article is trying to enlighten the audiences about the overwhelming increasing rate of cybercrime in India along with the need to protect digital data.

            Data reveals that the number of complaints which have been reported under the online financial fraud category of the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal is 884,863 starting from the year 2021 to 2022[i] Besides, the rate of cybercrime specifically against children has seen to rise to 1376 from the previous years. The country is experiencing a significant jump in terms of online crime incidence which has reached over 52000[ii]. Most of the complaints have been seen from Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh where Uttar Pradesh had the highest number in comparison to the entire country. Providing emphasis to the concept, it can be said that cybercrime can be termed as illegal behaviour which involves a computer network or a kind of network device. In many cases, it has been observed that described target computer infects them with a virus that ultimately spread to other computers as well while infecting the whole network

            A wide range of procedures is there that are used by digital criminals in terms of bringing threats to digital data. Identity theft is considered to be an important one where a criminal gets access to the personal information of a user in the process of stealing money or can do any type of fraud. In recent days Phishing has achieved significant popularity as cybercrime where hackers usually send malicious emails which are attached to URLs so that obtaining access to different accounts can be easy. Besides, Cyber Stalking is also taken to be a process by which criminals stalk people on social media accounts in the process of gathering private data to have the benefits of that particular account. The popularity of Botnets can also be noticed as an online crime where a network is made up of infected machines which are managed by the hackers by being far from the object to contact harmful operations.

            The Indian Penal Code 1860 (IPC) along with The Information Technology Act 2000 (IT ACT) is considered to be responsible for penalising a lot of crimes related to cyber security. Publishing or transmitting any kind of obscene material in electronic form under Section 67 of the IT Act and at the same time, transmitting materials which contain sexually explicit contents are considered to be illegal.  Additionally, all of the cybercrime-related issues under the IPC are considered to be bailable specifically except the ones which are Under Sections 420, 468, 411, 378 and 409. All of these sections are covering the factors like cheating and dishonesty which includes the delivery of property, for the specific purpose of forgery pre–planned for cheating, receiving stolen property dishonestly and breaching trust by being a public servant. Besides this, Section 66 F of the IT Act gives light on the penalisation process of Cyber Terrorism[iii]. It is responsible to cover the situations, where the offences are done to threaten the integrity, unity, sovereignty or security of the country.  eat also prioritises being the cause of the denial of access to a person who is authorised to access computer resources.

            Section 43 of the IT Act 2000, is actually applicable to the people who are responsible to damage the computer system without having the permission of its owner.  Section 65 talks about giving punishment for tampering with sources related to computer documents and providing them to others who intentionally or unintentionally destroy, conceal or alter them[iv]. Taking help from the landmark judgements of the Supreme Court of India, Yahoo v Akash Arora [1999],the case can be taken where the defendant has been accused to utilise the trademark of Yahoo which has been followed by a permanent injunction. In addition to this, the CBI v Arif Azim [2013], can also be taken in this regard, in which India got its first cybercrime conviction[v]. Here it can be seen that the firm has been responsible for taking digital photos of Arif Azim while accepting packages at the time of delivery.  Although, it has been said by the credit card company that the purchase was illegal and it was reported to be cheating by the farm to the CBI and investigated under sections 418, 419 and 420 under IPC. Apart from that, NASSCOM v Ajay Sood & Others [2005], can be regarded as a significant case where it has been declared by the court to be a part of phishing on the internet and leads to injunctions along with recovery damages.

            The Digital Personal Data Protection Bill 2022, is aiming towards safeguarding digital data which requires organisations to collect information by giving focus on removing personal data effectively[vi]. It has been developed to address data privacy and security in India while insurance protects the private data which belongs to individuals across the country.  Analysing all of the information in this regard, it can be stated that the increasing threat of cybercrime is bringing significant challenges to the mentioned country to have the advantages of digital technology in a better way.  Given the focus on the crime rates which have increased after the Covid-19 pandemic, it has been really important for the country to find out the loopholes in the laws and to provide better facilities with which the issue can be handled well. Emphasising these issues, the article has taken the help of various case laws and judgements of the Supreme Court, for providing credible information to audiences. 

[i]Basuroy, T. (2022) India: Number of cyber crimes 2021, Statista. Available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/309435/india-cyber-crime-it-act/ (Accessed: 11 July 2023).

[ii][ii]Section 66F of the information technology act, 2000 (no date) Centre for Internet &Society.(2022)  Available at: https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/resources/section-66f-of-the-i-t-act-

[iii]Law and cyber crimes (2022) Legal Service India - Law, Lawyers and Legal Resources. Available at: https://www.legalserviceindia.com/legal/article-6911-law-and-cyber-crimes.html (Accessed: 11 July 2023).

[iv]Shukla, S. (2021). CBI v. Arif Azim-A Critical Analysis of Cyber Crime in India. Legal Spectrum J., 1

[vi]Draft Digital Personal Data Protection bill, 2022 (2023) PRS Legislative Research. Available at: https://prsindia.org/billtrack/draft-the-digital-personal-data-protection-bill-2022 (Accessed: 11 July 2023).