Lok Sabha Question No. 127 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2016-11-16
Subject: Cyber Crime
Ministry: ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Asked by: JITENDRA CHAUDHURY, ANANT KUMAR DATTATREYA HEGDE, UDAY PRATAP SINGH, DHARAMBIR BHALERAM

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

## LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 127

TO BE ANSWERED ON: 16.11.2016

## CYBER CRIME

## 127    SHRI JITENDRA CHAUDHURY:  SHRI ANANTKUMAR HEGDE:  SHRI UDAY PRATAP SINGH:  SHRI DHARAMBIR:

Will the Minister of ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY be pleased to state:

- (a) whether the Government has taken note of cybercrime especially on social media increasing all over the country;
- (b) if so, the details thereof along with percentage increase in cyber crimes in the last three years;
- (c) the  action  taken  by  the  Government  in  this  regard  along  with  the  steps  taken  to  protect  women  from increasing harassment on social sites?

## ANSWER

## MINISTER OF STATE FOR MINISTRY OF ELECTRONICS AND INFORMRATION TECHNOLOGY (SHRI P.P. CHAUDHARY)

(a) and (b):  With the proliferation of Information Technology and related services there is a rise in instances of cyber  crimes  including  that  on  social  media  in  the  country  like  elsewhere  in  the  world.  As  per  the  data maintained by NCRB, A total of 5693, 9622 and 11592 cyber crime cases were registered during the  years 2013, 2014 and 2015 respectively, showing a rise of 69% during 2013 to 2014 and 20% during 2014 to 2015. Further, CBI has registered 11, 20 and 25 cases in the year 2013, 2014 and 2015 respectively related to cyber crimes.

(c):    Government  has  taken  various  steps  in  the  form  of  legal  framework,  emergency  response,  awareness, training,  legal  framework  and  implementation  of  best  practices  to  prevent  occurrence  of  cyber  breaches  and cyber crime threats.  Such steps include:

- i) The  Information  Technology  Act,  2000  provides  a  comprehensive  legal  framework  to  address  the  issues connected with cyber crime, cyber attacks and security breaches of information technology infrastructure.
2. ii) Government is implementing a Framework for Enhancing Cyber Security, with a multi-layered approach for ensuring defence-in-depth and clear demarcation of responsibilities among the stakeholder organizations in the country.
3. iii) Government has established National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre (NCIIPC) as per the  provisions  of  Section  70A  of  the  Information  Technology  Act,  2000  for  protection  of  Critical Information Infrastructure in the country.
4. iv) The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) issues alerts and advisories regarding latest cyber  threats  and  countermeasures  on  regular  basis.    CERT-In  has  published  guidelines  for  securing  IT
5. infrastructure, which are available on its website (www.certin.org.in).  In order to detect variety of threats and imminent cyber attacks from outside the country, periodic scanning of cyber space is carried out.
- v) Government has formulated Crisis Management Plan for countering cyber attacks and cyber terrorism for implementation  by  all  Ministries/  Departments  of  Central  Government,  State  Governments  and  their organizations and critical sectors.
7. vi) Cyber security mock drills are being conducted regularly to enable assessment of cyber security posture and preparedness of organizations in Government and critical sectors.
8. vii) Government has initiated setting up of National Cyber Coordination Centre (NCCC) to generate necessary situational awareness of existing and potential cyber security threats and enable timely information sharing for proactive, preventive and protective actions by individual entities.
9. viii) CERT-In, Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology is setting up a Botnet Cleaning and Malware Analysis centre for detection of computer systems infected by malware and to notify, enable cleaning and securing systems of end users to prevent further malware infections.
10. ix) Cyber Crime Cells have been set up in all States and Union Territories for reporting and investigation of Cyber Crime cases.
- x) Government  has  set  up  cyber  forensic  training  and  investigation  labs  in  the  States  of  Kerala,  Assam, Mizoram, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Tripura, Meghalaya, Manipur and Jammu & Kashmir for training of Law Enforcement and Judiciary in these States.
12. xi) Industry associations such as Data Security Council of India (DSCI), NASSCOM, Cyber Forensic Labs, set up in certain States, have taken up tasks of awareness creation  and training programmes on Cyber Crime investigation.  Academia like National Law School, Bangalore and NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad are  also  engaged  in  conducting  several  awareness  and  training  programmes  on  Cyber  Laws  and  Cyber crimes for judicial officers.
13. xii) A number of Cyber forensics tools for collection, analysis, presentation of the digital evidence have been developed indigenously and such tools are being used by Law Enforcement Agencies.
14. xiii) Indian  Computer  Emergency  Response  Team  (CERT-In)  and  Centre  for  Development  of  Advanced Computing (CDAC) are involved in providing basic and advanced training to Law Enforcement Agencies, Forensic  labs  and  judiciary  on  the  procedures  and  methodology  of  collecting,  analysing  and  presenting digital evidence.
15. xiv) Government has formulated a set of investigation manuals with procedures for Search, Seizure Analysis and Presentation of digital evidence in courts.  The manuals have been circulated to Law Enforcement Agencies in all States.
16. xv) Reserve Bank of India (RBI) issues Circulars/advisories to all Commercial Banks on phishing attacks and preventive / detective measures to tackle phishing attacks.  RBI also issues advisories relating to fictitious offers of funds transfer, remittance towards participation in lottery, money circulation schemes and other fictitious offers of cheap funds.
17. xvi) The  Information  Technology  Act,  2000  together  with  the  Indian  Penal  Code  (IPC)  and  Protection  of Children  from  Sexual  Offences  Act  (POCSO)  provides  legal  framework  for  dealing  with  online  obscene material including child sexual abuse.
18. xvii) Government  has  notified  the  Information  Technology  (Intermediary  Guidelines)  Rules  2011  under Section  79  of  the  Information  Technology  Act.  These  rules  require  that  the  Intermediaries,  including national and international social networking sites and matrimonial sites, shall observe due diligence while discharging  their  duties  and  shall  inform  the  users  of  Computer  resources  not  to  host,  display,  upload,
19. modify, publish, transmit, update or share any information that is harmful, objectionable, affect minors and unlawful in any way. The said rules also require the intermediaries to appoint Grievance Officers to address the grievances received from users and affected individuals / organizations as and when received by them. Advisory for Online Matrimonial Websites service providers. The Advisory aims to protect women from fraudsters after getting introduced through fake profiles on matrimonial portal. Through the advisory the Online Matrimonial Websites have been  advised  to  adopt  a  framework  which  includes  verification  of  users,  privacy  policy,  user  agreement
20. xviii) Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has issued an (Terms and Conditions) etc.

********