Forms of cyber terrorism

Monday, August 23, 2010

(I) Privacy Violation:

The law of privacy is the recognition of the individual's right to be let alone and to have his personal space inviolate. The right to privacy as an independent and distinctive concept originated in the field of Tort law, under which a new cause of action for damages resulting from unlawful invasion of privacy was recognized. In recent times, however, this right has acquired a constitutional status, the violation of which attracts both civil as well as criminal consequences under the respective laws.


The intensity and complexity of life have rendered necessary some retreat from the world. Man under the refining influence of culture, has become sensitive to publicity, so that solitude and privacy have become essential to the individual.
Modern enterprise and invention have, through invasions upon his privacy, subjected him to mental pain and distress, far greater than could be inflicted by mere bodily injury. Right to privacy is a part of the right to life and personal liberty enshrined under Article 21 of the Constitution of India. With the advent of information technology the traditional concept of right to privacy has taken new dimensions, which require a different legal outlook. To meet this challenge recourse of Information Technology Act, 2000 can be taken.




The various provisions of the Act aptly protect the online privacy rights of the citizens. Certain acts have been categorized as offences and contraventions, which have tendency to intrude with the privacy rights of the citizens.


(II) Secret information appropriation and data theft:


The information technology can be misused for appropriating the valuable Government secrets and data of private individuals and the Government and its agencies. A computer network owned by the Government may contain valuable information concerning defence and other top secrets, which the Government will not wish to share otherwise. The same can be targeted by the terrorists to facilitate their activities, including destruction of property. It must be noted that the definition of property is not restricted to moveables or immoveables alone.


In R.K. Dalmia v Delhi Administration the Supreme Court held that the word "property" is used in the I.P.C in a much wider sense than the expression "movable property". There is no good reason to restrict the meaning of the word "property" to moveable property only, when it is used without any qualification. Whether the offence defined in a particular section of IPC can be committed in respect of any particular kind of property, will depend not on the interpretation of the word "property" but on the fact whether that particular kind of property can be subject to the acts covered by that section.


(III) Demolition of e-governance base:


The aim of e-governance is to make the interaction of the citizens with the government offices hassle free and to share information in a free and transparent manner. It further makes the right to information a meaningful reality. In a democracy, people govern themselves and they cannot govern themselves properly unless they are aware of social, political, economic and other issues confronting them. To enable them to make a proper judgment on those issues, they must have the benefit of a range of opinions on those issues. Right to receive and impart information is implicit in free speech. This, right to receive information is, however, not absolute but is subject to reasonable restrictions which may be imposed by the Government in public interest.


(IV) Distributed denial of services attack:


The cyber terrorists may also use the method of distributed denial of services (DDOS) to overburden the Government and its agencies electronic bases. This is made possible by first infecting several unprotected computers by way of virus attacks and then taking control of them. Once control is obtained, they can be manipulated from any locality by the terrorists. These infected computers are then made to send information or demand in such a large number that the server of the victim collapses. Further, due to this unnecessary Internet traffic the legitimate traffic is prohibited from reaching the Government or its agencies computers. This results in immense pecuniary and strategic loss to the government and its agencies.


It must be noted that thousands of compromised computers can be used to simultaneously attack a single host, thus making its electronic existence invisible to the genuine and legitimate citizens and end users. The law in this regard is crystal clear.


(V) Network damage and disruptions:


The main aim of cyber terrorist activities is to cause networks damage and their disruptions. This activity may divert the attention of the security agencies for the time being thus giving the terrorists extra time and makes their task comparatively easier. This process may involve a combination of computer tampering, virus attacks, hacking, etc[1].




Reference:
[1]http://www.legalserviceindia.com/article/l169-Cyber-Terrorism.html

1 comments:

Saeed Heydari said...

Before discussing about the possibilities and different forms of “cyber terrorism, I want to clarify definition of cyber terrorism because I think which it can help us to underestand better about these legal issue. The word “cyber terrorism” refers to two elements: cyberspace and terrorism.cyberspace is the virtual world: a place in which computer programs function and data moves. Terrorism is a much used term which I think there is no need to define.

In this post we find that we have many types of cyber terrorism because
Cyber terrorist prefer using different cyber attack methods because of many advantages of them.Terrorism acts in cyberspace is cheaper than traditional methods and the action is very difficult to be tracked. In the other hand, there are no physical barriers or check points to cross and they can do it remotely from anywhere in the world and they can use this method to attack a big number of targets.