INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (AMENDMENT) ACT, 2008

Rapid increase in the use of computer and Internet has given rise to new forms of crimes
like, sending offensive emails and multimedia messages, child pornography, cyber terrorism,
publishing sexually explicit materials in electronic form, video voyeurism, breach of
confidentiality and leakage of data by intermediary, e-commerce frauds like cheating by
personating-commonly known as phishing, identity theft, frauds on online auction sites, etc. So,
penal provisions were required to be included in the Information Technology Act, 20000. Also, the
act needed to be technology-neutral to provide for alternative technology of electronic signature
for bringing harmonization with Model Law on Electronic. Signatures adopted by United Nations
Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL).
Keeping in view the above, Government had introduced the Information Technology
(Amendment) Bill, 2006 in Lok Sabha on 15 of December 2006. Both the houses of Parliament
passed the Bill on 23rd December 2008. Subsequently the Information Technology (Amendment)
Act, 2008 received the assent of President on 5th February 2009 and was notified in the Gazette of
India.

Under the IT Act, sections 65 to 78 did provide for offences and penalties, but were limited
in their scope dealing with tampering with computer source code documents, hacking systems and
publishing and disseminating obscene information in electronic form or for fraudulent purposes.
The amendment provides for eight different types of offences, which range from using computer
resource code or communication device to disseminating and composing information which is
false, offensive or menacing in nature, fraudulent, dishonest use of electronic signatures, password
or other identification features to any computer source or communication device in capturing,
publishing or transmitting any form of obscene images and visuals, as being crimes affecting
individuals, or other persons. Cyber cafes have been brought in the net, increasing accountability
of intermediaries, thereby including search engines, service provides, online markets, without
clarity on how to trap the fox. These provisions structured in a diffused manner with unrelated
aspects such cyber terrorism clauses juxtaposed in between. Somewhere along the line the concept
of hacking of the 2000 act has been dropped, dumping the accepted trade definition, replacing it by
section 66, the detailed language of which could prove inherently restrictive in interpretation.
Prevention is always better than cure. It is always better to take precaution while operating
the net. The 5P mantra for online security are : Precaution, Prevention, Protection, Preservation
and Perseverance. A netizen should keep in mind the following things.
1. To prevent cyber stalking avoid disclosing any information pertaining to oneself. This is as
good as disclosing your identity to strangers in public place.
2. Always avoid sending any photograph online particularly to strangers and chat friends as
there have been incidents of misuse of the photographs.
3. Always use latest and update antivirus software to guard against virus attacks.
4. Always keep back up volumes so that one may not suffer data loss in case of virus
contamination.
5. Never send your credit card number to any site that is not secured, to guard against fraud.
6. Always keep a watch on the sites your children are accessing to prevent any kind of
harassment or depravation in children.
7. It is better to use a security program that gives control over the cookies that send information
back to the site as leaving the cookies unguarded might prove fatal.
8. Web site owners should watch traffic and check any irregularity on the site. Putting host
based intrusion detection on servers may do the trick.
9. Use of firewalls may be beneficial.
10. Web servers running public sites must be physically separated and protected from internal
corporate network.