Expanding Cyber-Crimes: How to prevent and control?

By Muhammad Shahbaz Ali Advocate

Internet is, no doubt, a ready- made miraculous ocean of the treasures of information, entertainment, and education. A person of every age, region, religion, community and profession can utilize this ocean, at the one single click of his/ her finger, living at any corner of the world. This internet is a researcher’s library, the educator’s institution, the doctor’s teaching-hospital, the engineer’s technical skills, the designer’s art, the entertainment seeker’s studio, the student’s teacher, the player’s play-ground, and every thing for every one. The benefits and utilizations of today’s information & Communication Technology (ICT) are unbelievable, which has digitalized every walk of life, like a living miracle of a soft revolution.

Cybercrime has become expanding phenomenon all over the world and Pakistan stands at the 7th top position in the electronic crime committers. Common people cannot understand the cunning nature of the cyber criminals as they are unable to grasp any fixed shape of these crimes. Any exact definition of cyber crime has not been coined yet but it can be described as a criminal act carried out on internet. According to Grabosky cyber crime means, “Any computer related crime such as digital child pornography, piracy, stalking, forgery, harassment and intellectual property, hacking or drug trafficking with digital proof.” (Grabosky 2004). In Pakistan cybercrime is immensely increased in the present decade, but its nature is different in teenagers, children and mature ones. With the expanding growth of internet in Pakistan, there is also exceptional crime rate as well. Presently, the internet has penetrated very rapidly in the society and every department of the govt that Pakistan is bound to regulate its process by law. But it has its dark side too. Like other crimes in the world, it has also created space for the criminals to commit cyber crimes and befool the ignorants by making fake accounts, hacking acts, and other cyber crimes. Mostly, unavailability of net service (DDoS), the remote hacker’s Botnets, the stealing of funds by identity thefts, the harassments by cyber stalking, the social engineering by phone or email, the malware of unwanted programs called Pups, the Phishing by malicious emails, the sharing of prohibited and illegal contents, the online scams for money, the control of other’s computers by exploit kits, and the internet gambling like casino games, lucky draws and other skill games etc. The prominent cybercrimes observed on internet in Pakistan are sometimes turned into cyber terrorism when terroristic cyber attacks are carried out. Today, social media is full of fake accounts, fake posts, fake information and fake pics. The job posts are just for taking money out of the applicants.  The fake offer letters of jobs are drafted in homes and presented to the applicants from the foreign companies. In such ventures, a Pakistani man deals with the customers and another Pakistani living in USA / Canada or Europe gives the final touch to the fake deal just for money. Even both the agents show their fake cards to satisfy the clients. Similarly, most of the loan apps and their advertising posts pretend to be real but their loopholes of language, artificiality and big offers etc. expose their fake origin. So, cyber space has become the crime ground for the cybercrime committers. Further more, the criminal attitude of digital piracy, the direct contact with teenagers and children to engage them in sexual acts and persuade them to exchange pornography etc. The face book, you tube, SMSs and fake WhatsApp messages are the main tools on social media crimes in Pakistan. Although Pakistan has formulated some cyber crimes laws like, Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act 2016 (PECA), Payments & Electronic fund transfer Act, 2007, and Electronic Translations Ordinance 2002, but they are not sufficient laws to control the Cyber crimes in Pakistan. Similarly, the Cyber Crime wing, CCW, of FIA guided by PECA is not producing desired results. Social Media has more fake accounts than real ones but there is no law to trace and punish them. China and Saudia Arabia have successfully implemented the internet filtering for the net users at the ISPs and Govt level for the purpose of blocking websites with the keywords of terrorism, bomb-making recipes and pornography etc. But proper legislation is required to infilter the incoming net traffic before it’s access to the net users. The people committing cybercrimes should be dealt strictly and laws amended with the passage of time. To deal with cybercrimes in Pakistan, “Prevention of Electronic Crime Act” was legislated in 2016 and FIA was given authority to enforce it. FIA has tried to implement it successfully but still there remains some flaws. Govt level policy on cybercrime is not clear, investigation technique is yet not on the surface, old registration system still prevails, the FIA officials are not fully expert and trained and offices of FIA are established at divisional levels whereas crimes are being committed on street and union council level day by day.  Following measures should be taken to control the Cyber Crimes in Pakistan. First of all, further comprehensive Cyber laws should be formulated to regulate the crimes under separate sections which are increasing day by day and missed in PECA. Secondly, the existing PECA is a good foundation for further relevant laws as it is not as detailed as it should be in 2023. Thirdly, the divisional level regional offices of FIA should be established at Tehsil levels where tehsil level courts also be established to decide the crimes. Fourthly, cyber crime wings should be established in every Police Station for FIR as police is registering FIR of other crimes. If FIA, military, academia and police deal the cybercrimes at different levels, crimes can be controlled collectively.