Cybercrime Issue in Uttarakhand :

Cybercrime, also called computer crime, the use of a computer as an instrument to further illegal ends, such as committing fraud, trafficking in child pornography and intellectual property, stealing identities, or violating privacy. Cybercrime, especially through the Internet, has grown in importance as the computer has become central to commerce, entertainment, and government.

Though Uttarakhand is considered to be a generally safe state compared to other states, there has been a marked rise in incidents of cyber crime since 2016. Most of such cyber crime cases registered with the police are related to cyber bullying and cyber fraud. The maximum cases of cyber crimes recorded since 2016 till date are from Dehradun and Haridwar districts. As per the data from police headquarters, a total of 43 cases were filed across the 13 districts of the state in 2016 with the number of such cases jumping to 216 in 2017 and 121 till April this year.

The reported cyber crime cases registered a marked increase in 2017 with a total of 25 cases reported from the Kumaon region-- the maximum of 15 cases being from Udham Singh Nagar district. In the Garhwal region, a total 187 cases were reported with the maximum number of cases – 150- being from Dehradun district followed by 28 in Haridwar. In 2018 till April, a total of 23 cases were reported from Kumaon region with the maximum 10 cases being from Udham Singh Nagar district. During the same period, a total of 91 cases were registered in the Garhwal region with the maximum of 49 cases being from Dehradun followed by 26 cases in Haridwar.

There are mainly two types of cyber crimes-- one is economic and second is bullying done on the internet. Majority of the cases reported are of cyber fraud. We can say that as the reach of the internet is spreading day by day cyber crime is also increasing. In order to tackle this, we have formed cyber cells in every district. In addition, we also hold workshops regularly for the officers to teach them the new techniques for stopping cyber crime.

Due to lack of information security various cyber crime arises. Hacking the login password in govt. department of state and asking ransomware in return, ATM card fraud, illegally getting bank account information on behalf of bank, illegal mail on behalf of RBI bank to give account number, fake videos , and information on social media are some examples of cyber crimes which are rising high in the state. So govt. has taken some initiative to tackle these issues.
Most cybercrime is an attack on information about individuals, corporations, or governments. Although the attacks do not take place on a physical body, they do take place on the personal or corporate virtual body, which is the set of informational attributes that define people and institutions on the Internet. In other words, in the digital age our virtual identities are essential elements of everyday life: we are a bundle of numbers and identifiers in multiple computer databases owned by governments and corporations.
Cybercrime ranges across a spectrum of activities. obtained digital information to blackmail a firm or individual, crime of identity theft. transaction-based crimes such as fraud, trafficking in child pornography, digital piracy, money laundering, and counterfeiting etc.

Steps taken to control cyber crime in Uttarakhand by government :

Cyber Crimes are a new class of crimes to Himachal rapidly expanding due to extensive use of internet. With the evolution of the Internet, along came another revolution of crime where the perpetrators commit acts of crime and wrongdoing on the World Wide Web. Internet crime takes many faces and is committed in diverse fashions. The number of users and their diversity in their makeup has exposed the Internet to everyone. Some criminals in the Internet have grown up understanding this superhighway of information, unlike the older generation of users. This is why Internet crime has now become a growing problem in the Himachal also .Some crimes committed on the Internet have been exposed to the world and some remain a mystery up until they are perpetrated against someone or some company.

1. The Uttarakhand government created a separate cell in the state police to deal exclusively with cyber crimes. With an annual plan of Rs 16.11 crore for the current fiscal for modernisation of the police force.The amount will be spent over creating training facilities for police personnel, purchase of state-of-the-art equipments. The facility will be provided necessary technical assistance in apprehending the suspects and collection of digital evidence on all issue of cyber crime. It will investigate and register all serious cyber offenses i.e. hacking of government websites and its data, prevention and detection of cyber terrorism & financing all types of cyber fraud cases, identifying communal tension modules etc. Cyber Crime Police Station will also liaise and undertake the investigation of cases of cyber crime having an impact in national and international level along with the nodal agencies of these organizations for prevention, detection, and investigation of cyber crime. The Cyber Police Station will also be responsible for creating general awareness among the masses to prevent them from falling victim to the hands of high and cyber tech criminals.

2.  In a bid to avoid being harmed by cyber-attacks, Uttarakhand State Cooperative Bank has started Cyber Security Operation Center and Project Management Unit at its headquarters at Haldwani . Now the center is being set up in banks at the district level. A separate IT cell will be set up in all cooperative banks. For this, training will be provided to employees and officials.

Employees of centers will keep a close watch on transactions done through ATMs as well as from banks. Experts of the Cyber Operation Cell will be immediately active as soon as they get information about the misappropriation of any money in the accounts of customers”.The main purpose of the cell is to give full security to the customers’ money.

3. Awareness campaign : The objective of the programme is to educate school and colleges students,parents and prevent them to fall prey to cyber crimes. People need to be educated because the dimensions of cyber crime are limitless and borderless. In majority cases people fall victim to allurements send to their email id's and people forward their bank accounts. So state government start campaign program to educate college and greying age population not to fall in the trap of cyber crime.

Suggestions :

We are living in the 21st Century in the country which is in a developing state, where the technology is getting advance and replacing the job of the humans. With the involvement of the internet using the online crime rate is also increasing consequently, for which there are legal remedies available with the victim. But we have seen that the cyber-crime case files are increasing more than that of the solved cases, this is due to the carelessness of the people and lack of the cyber experts who can handle these case. Therefore, we need better training institutes as well as a compulsory branch of Cyber-security subject which will help in solving the cyber-cases and will raise the trust towards the security, but we can try to secure ourselves –
• If we all take care of our own security by not providing the loopholes to the attackers in the social media,
• By not getting trap in social engineering,
• Securing our data by giving the limit in the permissions to the websites,
• Not using the unsecured websites,
• by not disclosing smart-phone locks,ATM card’s pin etc., then there are fewer chances of compromise with the data.