In this article, Asklovya Panwar of Institute of Law, Nirma University discusses White Collar Crimes in cyber crime.
“My father used to always say to me that, you know, if a guy goes out to steal a loaf of bread to feed his family, they’ll give him 10 years, but a guy can do white-collar crime and steal the money of thousands and he’ll get probation and a slap on the wrist.”– Jesse Ventura
Introduction
The evolution of criminology has provided various theories related to the behaviour of the criminal and the reasons of the happenings of the crimes. One such theory was the Rational choice theory where a person commits the crime because of his situations. These situation based theories focussed more on the social and economic determinants of crime, such as family background and level of wealth. But this thought was criticized by the Criminologist and Sociologist Edwin H. Sutherland when he introduced and popularized the term “white collar crimes” in the year 1939. He defined the term as a crime committed by a person of honourableness and high social strata in the course of his job or occupation. These crimes are done by unethical people in the thirst of gaining more and more from their business, job or occupation. These crimes are mainly for the financial purposes. An example of White collar crimes are-Bank Fraud, Blackmail, Bribery, Cellular Phone Fraud, Computer Fraud, Counterfeiting, Credit Card Fraud, Currency Schemes, Fake Employment Placement Rackets, Forgery, Health Care Fraud etc.
White collar crimes have evolved its dimension with the passage of time. The major transformation in this category of crime has taken place when the innovation of technology blessed us with the internet. The rise of the internet has flowed the river of nuances by giving birth to various computer crimes or cyber crimes. This leads to the fusion of white collar crimes and cyber crimes.
The main question which the author wants to pose: What is the fusion of White collar and cyber crimes? What are the laws dealing with it? What are the revolutionary cases of these crimes?
Fusion of white collar and cyber crimes
Most numbers of crimes on the internet are white collar crimes as they do not involve any violence and they are only financially motivated. Before internet age these crimes only outside the computer purview but now they are occurring at a wide pace by the source of internet and internet world. Any crime committed on the Internet is referred to as a cyber crime. White collar, cyber crimes seems to be innocent as there is a lack of violence and they do not occur on the streets. The laws for these crimes has enlarged their dimensions and we are getting more stringent laws for these white collar, cyber crimes. Many white collar crimes occur on the internet every day. Here are some examples;
Computer Intrusion (Hacking)
It is one of the white collar crime, cyber crime which occurs instantly on the internet.Hacking is a term generally defined as the accessing of computer or internet without having proper authorization.Hacking is manipulation of the inner working of the information of the technology. Hackers attack the private information of a user for financial gains and monetary benefits.There are other purposes for the act of hacking like someone accessing his family’s email account, will technically account as hackers.
In India sec 65 and 66 of the IT Act deals with the act of hacking, whereas section 70 of the Act defines the punishment for the same. Hacking includes various activities as per the law like introducing malicious software, destroying information, downloading of copies, interference, unauthorized access to the information.
The revolutionary case in the field of Hacking was the case of September 1999 when some hackers broke into the website of NASDAQ and American Stock Exchange. This case has been remarked as a “bold electronic affront to the world’s financial market”.
The offense of hacking forms a cycle of offenses, if done with the intention of committing further crimes, the parallel of those crimes are the offense of theft, fraud, forgery etc.
There are different forms of hacking like disruption of the information system, execution of malicious software that modifies or destroys the data example “I love you, Melissa” a virus which was a controversy in 1999 after taking down the internet for few days and similar other “Trojan Horses”.
Salami Attacks
But the type of hacking which includes in the white collar crimes is the “Salami Attacks” which occurs mainly in the financial area. These attacks go unnoticed due to their performing very little alterations. An example of Salami Attacks are the Ziegler case, where 10 cents was deducted from the bank’s account.it was taking place in every deposited amount. Similarly, case which took place recently in May 2017 by the Wanna cry ransomware demanding of ransom has taken place in the form of bitcoins cryptocurrency by the computer users running the Microsoft Windows operating system by encrypting data.
White Collar Crime in India – Important cases
Varpaul Singh V state of Punjab
In this, the petitioner worked in a Motor vehicle company.The accused formed fictitious bills and entries and deleted important data from the computers.Bills for the work done were deleted from the computer mainframe.
BSNL CASE
A similar case has taken place in 2009 by a Techie from Bangalore named N G Arun Kumar where he was accused of altering the data of BSNL Broadband network.He got rigorous imprisonment of 1 year with 5200 Rupees fine u/s 420 of IPC [Cheating] and 66 of IT Act [Hacking]
Cyber/Internet Fraud
Another kind of white collar crime on the internet is the cyber fraud which occurs when a person intercept/ hacks the other person’s computer for accessing personal information which mainly involves credit card information, social security numbers, and other bank account information.As like hacking cyber frauds are also unidentifiable. Online auction fraud is also a crime an individual may commit unknowingly, or be unaware of the severe consequences.There is another category in the list of fraud i.e., Wire fraud which takes place via email, text, fax, etc.It involves interstate communication and is illegal.It can be against both the individual or corporations.The banking and financial sector are the fraud against the corporation.
In India, we don’t have any direct law for cyber fraud except the frauds relating to e-commerce u/s 44 of the IT Act which is not even a criminal liability.
But, section 25(Fraudulent Act), section 415 and 416(Cheating by Impersonation) and Section 417 to 420(Aggravated Cheating) of IPC can deal with internet fraud it comes within the section 415 of IPC i.e., “Cheating”, due to debate on the term “Fraud”.
In the IT Act Section, 71 can also deal with the act of cyber fraud i.e., Penalty for misrepresentation.
Theft of identity
This white collar cyber crime is related to the theft of data or data related crimes.It occurs when the identity of one appropriated by another.
There are different types of Identity Theft namely IP spoofing, page jacking, cross-site scripting, etc.In Ip spoofing an individual impersonates the computer of the victim for accessing the privileged protocols without authorization, It is done by the help of software.
Page jacking is the faking of the website so that the user reached to some other site thinking of a different site.It is done by reprogramming the logo or link to that particular site.
Cross-site crossing forced the computer of the user to send restricted information without the permission of that user/owner.
These identity thefts are mainly for gaining in the terms of financial or information based.These white collar crimes on the internet occur instantly without our knowing.
The biggest case of Identity theft has taken place in January 2009, when a person named Albert Gonzalez, arrested for launching a global scheme for stealing data from 130 million credit and debit cards by hacking into 7 major companies.He is America’s one of most cyber crime kingpins.
In India, before the 2008 amendment data theft comes under Section 66 of IT Act.But after the amendment, there has been the introduction of new offences in sections 66A to 66D in the IT Act. In India, in Gurgaon, only 70 cases of identity theft and fake social networking profiles have been registered till now in 2012.
One of the most prominent forms of identity theft is Phishing:
Phishing
It is mainly done for financial benefit and it takes places by impersonating someone else electronically.It can be done by using someone’s login information for gaining access to personal information or by application of digital signature of someone else in the electronic contracts without authorization or by cloning the sim cards of mobile forms so that account can be formed on other’s information.
The most revolutionary Identity theft was done by an Indian Married Couple in US, Amar Singh, and Neha Punjabi Singh.They have done a scam of a $ 13 Million scam by skimming of credit cards and phishing through the internet.The identities extracted online has been sold to different people for staying in 5-star hotel or rent expensive cars or private jets.A shopping market has been formed for these identities sale at discounted price.
Phishing is mainly of 3 types-Dragnet Method, Rod and Reel method and lobster pot method.
A recent trend of Phishing has emerged named as Vishing.It is called the voice phishing where someone will call you and deceive their identities by introducing themselves from the bank and then extracting the detailed account information.These calls are interlinked with the Fraud control department.it is very disturbing and complex system of Phishing where a person without his knowing give his information and then suffers a huge financial and monetary loss.
Cases of a Phishing scam
RBI PHISHING SCAM
In this, there was a scam where the users get a notification that they can win 10 lakhs in 48 hours and after clicking that they reached to a site looking similar to RBI site.The users give their personal information there like password, account number, etc.
ICC world cup 2011
This is one of the highest standard cases of Phishing where a clone of the site of ICC has been formed.They lure the visitors with various schemes and offers for the world cup.The users were asked their credit details and other personal information.This was done solely for the purpose of financial gain.
Copyright Piracy
It is one of the most common and consistent white collar crime occurring online.Every now and then people distribute, download and share the copyrighted data on the internet.The most widely used copyrighted data download hub is the torrent.This activity attracts Intellectual property laws which can include everything from trade secrets, music, movies, etc. It is a widespread issue with millions of offenders worldwide, law enforcement faces pressure from media companies to crack down on piracy offenders.
Conclusion
The innovation of technology has given rise to white collar crimes in the internet world.These crimes are unidentifiable as they do little alteration but the overall impact of these crimes is much more than we think. The laws regarding these white collar cyber crimes are very broad, far-reaching, constantly changing, and often difficult to understand. To worsen matters, law enforcement often lags behind the technological world, and prosecutors may seek harsher charges and punishments for crimes they don’t quite understand.One another problem with the white collar cyber crimes is that the investigation for these crimes takes very long time, may be a month or a year.These crimes take place in silence, but our laws has started to evolve and trying to cope up with these unethical activities.One day we will have regulations which will restrict this fusion of white collar and computer world.
References
- G. NAGARAJAN;DR. J. KHAJA SHERIFF ,WHITE COLLAR CRIMES IN INDIA, 1 International Journal of Social Science & Interdisciplinary Research 2-3 (2012), http://indianresearchjournals.com/pdf/IJSSIR/2012/September/16.pdf .
- Posted Cahill, 4 Internet Activities That May Constitute White Collar Crime, Law Office of Kevin Cahill (2017),http://www.cahillcriminaldefense.com/blog/2015/august/4-internet-activities-that-may-constitute-white-/ .
- Leonard Glick, CRIMINOLOGY (2005), http://www.ablongman.com/html/productinfo/glick/images/020540278X_ch03.pdf
4. chapter ii: law relating to cyber crime – NALSAR Proximate Education(www.nalsarpro.org/CL/Modules/Module4/Chapter-2.pdf)
