#5 Laws Organisations Can Bank On When Struck With a Cyber Attack Check out the the most prevalent cyber crimes and how you can protect yourself from them

Cyber crimes have been on an unprecedented rise and while we continue to surf away on the internet, most of us don't even know about the cyber laws that exist and protect us in India. Not just individuals but organisations too are facing the looming threat of cyber security, because of one's increasing presence on digital media.

With the advent of new media and people being addicted to the use of it, it becomes even more necessary for users to understand the laws. The IT Act, 2000 addresses crimes and also defines the punishments one can face for committing such mistakes on the Web.

Cyber security & International cyber law expert Prashant Mali, from Cyber Law Consulting, helps Entrepreneur India identify the top 5 prevalent cyber crimes in India and the punishments according to the law if one commits these crimes.

Officially unofficial

Whether you are leaving your workplace so downloaded your data or thought of transferring data from your official email to your personal email, it could easily land you in trouble. According to Section 43(b) forwarding data from companies email to personal email id or copying companies data on personal pen drives, amounts to cyber crime. This could result in upto 3 years of imprisonment followed by an INR 5 lakh as fine.

Stealing passwords

Hacking into someone else's account without their permission or playing a guessing game with their passwords so as to extract information from their accounts, is also punishable under the law. Guessing a password/ sequence on mobile phone or using someone's password without his permission to get into account amounts to hacking under Section 43(a) and can again result in 3 years of imprisonment with INR 5 lakh as fine

Fake Facebook accounts

A major aspect of cyber crimes now involve crimes that happen over social media. From those creepy facebook profiles cropping up to dubious schemes taking place on social media, the list is endless. Creating a facebook profile and cheating someone on social media too accounts for cyber crime under Section 66C or Section 66D.

Access denied

This section of the Act protects one's computer and the access to the same. It prevents anyone from obtaining access to another's computer to download, copy or extract any data or even destroy any pre-existing data in the computer. Taking away the permission from someone to use their own server by means of any software or hardware accomplice is also punishable under Section 43 (e) or (f).

Under-age sexual harassment

Possessing nude pictures or videos of children under 18 years of age or distribution of the same is a punishable offence. The same, if distributed or stored in a smartphone or one's computer is a crime. Even searching for the same on google can amount to cyber crime under Section 67(b) of The IT Act, 2000. One can face years of imprisonment and also be fined for Rs 10 Lakhs as penalty. It is also a non-bailable offence. The same law also prevents anyone from creating any text or visuals that depicts children in an explicit manner.