Cyber Crime

Cyber Crime Rises Rapidly in Pakistan

The cyber crimes of multiple kinds in Pakistan have increased by five times over the past four years, investigation officials said Tuesday.

According to the Cyber Crime Unit (CCU), a branch of Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), 62 cases were reported to the unit in 2007, 287 cases in 2008 and the ratio dropped in 2009 but in 2010 more than 312 cases were registered in different categories of cyber crimes.

"Instead of making constructive use of information technology ( IT) in today's quick life, users are more interested in its misuse. Most of the young generation is involved in this crime," a CCU official said.

Developed countries have introduced different policies to curb the destructive use of cyber facilities but in Pakistan, lack of proper developed monitoring system is an obstruction to the young generation, officials warned.

Meantime, a number of cyber crime cases are in progress in the lower court of capital Islamabad.

One of such cases is under trial in court of Additional Session Judge (ASJ) Rifaat Sultan Sheikh against Noman Asif, who was working as a computer expert in a private company and had been involve in creating vulgar pictures of four females of a same family on a social website.

Another case is also wielded in his court against Syed Umair and Frahan Shah, who were involved in illegal termination of international traffic using unauthorized Voice over Internet Protocols (VoIP) without obtaining any licenses.

According to sources, the "Prevention of Electronic Crimes Ordinance (PECO) 2007" gives exclusive powers to the FIA to investigate and charge cases against such crimes but that is also vulnerable to cyber crimes.

There are a number of cyber crimes in Pakistan mainly including cyber pornography, sale of illegal articles, online gambling, intellectual property crimes, email spoofing, cyber stalking, forgery, unauthorized access to computer systems/networks, theft of information contained in electronic form, virus attacks, Trojan attacks, Internet time theft, password cracking and financial cyber crimes (hacking of ATM card numbers and bank accounts).

Official data suggest that the hacking of ATM card numbers and bank accounts are on the rise in Pakistan.