Make Internet cyber crime free

Hyderabad, Dec 4: The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) Thursday called for collaboration and cooperation among countries to make Internet free from cyber crime.

Voicing concern over the growing cyber crimes and misuse of Internet by terrorists, the world's largest Internet congregation formed by the Union Nations Secretary General said mapping exercises of cyber security and trust between the countries will be uplifted.

The four-day meet, which began Wednesday, is being attended by 1,500 delegates from 100 countries.

"There is a need to exchange information without any hindrances among the nations and among the organisations to track down criminals. Global alliances and exchange of information have to be established for attaining safety, security and stability of the Internet," said Gulshan Rai, director-general of the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), a nodal agency for the security and protection of the critical infrastructure in the nation.

He said the legal framework of the Information Technology Act 2006 would be amended to address issues posed by new technologies and new crimes being observed in the cyberspace.

"The proposed amendments deal with data security and data privacy, identity theft, cyber terrorism, child pornography, spam, phishing and online frauds," he said.

The parliament standing committee, which scrutinised IT (Amendment) bill, 2006, has made a number of suggestions.

The proposed amendments in the legal framework would be in line with the European Cyber Convention and will address emerging issues in the cyberspace.

The draft IT (Amendment) bill has been sent to the cabinet for consideration and the bill will be tabled in the next session of parliament, he said.

"Once the amendments are made, corporate bodies will have to implement best security practices to secure data collected by them while providing services. Any leakage of the data of their account will result in payment of compensation to the victim," he said.

The number of attacks, including viruses and worms, cyber frauds in organisations, are rising by over 15 percent annually with many types of attacks doubling in number.

"Technology-oriented indicators clearly reflect that a monthly percentage of personal computers infected by a virus in the country has grown from about one percent in 2001 to about 17 percent in 2007. About 350 systems in a day get compromised," he said.

Rai said the number of phishing cases, too, are on the rise among the Indian banks. About seven to eight cases of phishing are being reported on an average every day.

"We are training our people both within the country as well as seeking cooperation from countries like the US to train our manpower in implementing security in IT infrastructure," he said.