Embed Doc
Copy Link
Readcast
Collections

1
CommentGo Back

Download

CYBER CRIME AND PREVENTION MEASURE:

Bangladesh Aspects

It is a reality of the 21

Century that we are living in a cyber world. It comprises the most hi tech benefitsand difficulties of our day to day lives. Cyber reality incorporates many of our real life activities includingbut not limited to online banking, online commerce and retail, virtual learning, domestic and foreigntrading through digital technologies , internet networks, critical industrial infrastructures,telecommunications, air traffic control, global positioning systems (GPS), global distribution systems(GDS) and hi tech medical equipment. Using cyber space Bangladesh can facilitate its resources toextend business worldwide and actively participate in multi billion dollar software trading and other prospective sectors. Global economic strength depends on strong communication infrastructure whichhas already been adopted by our neighbouring countries India and China.Alongside many advantages there are major risks also involved with this technology. Some of the mostcommon and most dangerous of these are: electronic fraud especially in the financial sector, identitytheft, illicit use of valuable information, hacking or cracking, cyber-stalking, distribution of piratedsoftware, terrorism, interference with sophisticated high level national security measures, immoralactivities, defamation and harassment which affect individuals at large. Such kind of cyber crimes maybe committed in following modes and manners as stated by

Parthasarathi Pati

in his article CYBERCRIME

Hacking

(unauthorized access to computer systems or networks)

Email bombing

(… refers to sending large numbers of mail to the victim….there by ultimatelyresulting into crashing).

Data diddling

(… an attack involves altering raw data just before a computer processes it andthen changing it back after the processing is completed

)

Salami Attacks

(demonstrated by the Ziegler case wherein a logic bomb was introduced in the bank’ssystem, which deducted 10 cents from every account and deposited it in a particular account)

Denial of Service attack/Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS)

(When a user is illegitimatelyprevented from accessing a service such as Amazon or Yahoo)

Virus / worm attacks

(an example of this being the “”love bug virus, which affected at least 5 % of thecomputers of the globe)

Logic bombs

( some viruses may be termed logic bombs because they lie dormant all through the year and become active only on a particular date, like the Chernobyl virus),

Trojan attacks

(its origin in the word ‘Trojan horse’ as the unauthorised program is inside what appearsto be an authorised application).On 29 May 2009 US president Barack Obama announced plans to name a cyber czar in an effort tobetter protect the computer networks and to protect The United States of America from a potential cyber attack. He stated that cyber crime incorporated organised crime, Industrial spying, misused stolen creditcard information (which cost the nation’s millions of dollars from 130 ATM machine round 49 cities in theworld within 30 minutes). Particularly American election properties have been stolen by the cyber intruders worth 400 million dollars. In June 2007 intruders hacked pentagon network. Recently inBangladesh, 4 students of a private technology institute hacked the RAB web site. On 23 June 2009RAB arrested JMB IT chief Rajib who used the internet as an engine of resources to make explosives touse in terrorism activities as he confessed that "I download information on explosives from internet,translate those in Bengali and send those to Mizan through Bashar (The Daily Star)," which is a seriousconcern for our national security.Being a part of global economy Bangladesh has to adopt up-to-date digital infrastructure to continue itsinformation relationship with rest of the world, who already have adopted the necessary technologiesand have been facing unique challenges every day. Developed countries have already transformed their financial, economic, agriculture, health, telecommunications, common utilities, education and publicsafety sectors into hi tech digital technologies. Though we are in an initial stage of this D-tech; once wesuccessfully apply it we will certainly face the mentioned critical situations that are being sufferedglobally.To control the misuse of the technologies in order to protect nations/states and bring the criminals withinthe jurisdiction, an effective cyber law can play a vital role in ensuring that national and global criminalsare fairly and successfully tried and judged for their crimes.“Cyber law is a term used to describe the legal issues related to use of communications technology,particularly "cyberspace", i.e. the Internet. It is less a distinct field of law than property or contract are asit is an intersection of many legal fields, including intellectual property, privacy, freedom of expression,

and jurisdiction. In essence, cyber law is an attempt to integrate the challenges presented by humanactivity on the Internet with legacy system of laws applicable to the physical world.”(cyberlawsindia.net). The government has shown a very positive approach by formulating some policies and Acts assafeguards for cyber victims. Namely, The National ICT Policy, Cyber Law, Information Technology(Electronic Transactions) Act (ITETA), 2000 though it is a close replica of the Indian ITA-2000 whichfailed to include Cyber Squatting, Spam and Cyber Terrorism. Also they more recently enactedInformation and Communication Technology Act (ICTA) 2006 to facilitate electronic commerce and toencourage growth and development of information technology and brought the cyber criminal within theambit of criminal jurisdiction. Some commentators stress the importance of making the law morestringent to prevent widespread cyber crime and in the process of the enactment of cyber lawgovernment may take advice from cyber security task force combined with computer scientists, information security professionals and lawyers.Bangladesh, a member country of INTERPOL may seek help to secure the punishment of net criminalsregardless of territory using INTERPOL’s global secure police communications system,I-24/7.The policy maker may formulate a baseline security procedures policy outlining the minimumrequirements which must be met by agencies regarding information security and may also develop aspecial analysis site which will be observed 24/7 and will provide real-time monitoring of cyber activities.‘Cyber incident response unit’ and ‘a cyber crime investigation cell’ may be built within law enforcementauthority to fight cyber crime successfully by adopting the enhancing ‘capacity’, good police work, skilledinvestigators by sharing the ‘too few’ professionals skilled in cyber-security and by training new officersto become experts in the field and providing adequate logistic support/equipment.Moreover, to keep the national security uninterrupted and avoid hacking, web servers running publicsites must be physically separate protected from internal corporate network and web site owners shouldwatch traffic and check any inconsistency on the site by installing host-based intrusion detection deviceson servers. On 13 June 2009, the day after presidential elections, Iran Telecom controlled traffic in andout of Iran largely using world's most sophisticated mechanism called the ‘Monitoring Centre’ sold byNokia Siemens Network to 150 countries including Iran in the second half of 2008 which allowsauthorities to monitor any communications across a network, including voice calls, text messaging,instant messages, and web traffic.(TheBBCreport).Govt. agencies, NGOs, media and server agencies may come forward to build awareness amongthe general internet users particularly more vulnerable underage “netizen” to save them from the lure of paedophiles and to be used as a source of collection of their parents/family’s confidential information.Educational institutions may include curriculum comprise with moral and social ethics and users’ code of conduct for the future IT fellows not to use the technology in a morally reprehensible manner.Law enforcement authority must monitor cafes’ and users’ activities imposing restriction on somewebsites and users (under18) requiring bar code/password for use and make the users aware of thepossible consequences of using certain sites.A “netizen” should always rethink whether his activities render him vulnerable and keep in mind thefollowing things:- To prevent ID theft one should avoid disclosing personal information (DoB, bank details) on any website to strangers.- Avoid sending any photograph online and providing email address to unknown person or chatfriends as there may be misused of it.- Unexpected financial gain offered by any person without any consideration should be avoidedunless the person is close relative, one may be asked to provide some intrinsic information(address, DoB, bank details), transaction/service charges.- Always uses latest and up date anti virus software to guard against virus attacks and keepback up volumes so that one may not suffer data loss in case of virus attack.