Rapidly Growing Cyber Crimes In Pakistan

The cyber crimes of multiple kinds in Pakistan have increased by five times over the past four years, investigation officials said;
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. 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.
In the last couple of years, cyber crime has increasingly expanded and is possibly one of the most complicated problems that the government and law enforcement agents within the country must deal every day. Cyber crime can be defined as the criminal action of dealing with computers and internet technologies against any individual or a state. Hate crimes like racism and cyber bulling, internet frauds, hacking into an other person system, identity theft and in general illegal activities commented by an individual by the use of a computer, is considered as cyber crime.
However, what is not clearly explained is that what is illegal offline, it is illegal online as well. For example, getting into a store and steal a CD is an offline crime…it is exactly the same crime when downloading unauthorized music from the internet. 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) and many more. But a question that is frequently asked concerning computer crimes is ‘what has this to do with the law’? What is very logical for enforcement agencies, is what is illegal off line is illegal on line as well. Sending to a user’s machine pieces of software’s that can destroy its machine is very much like destroying someone’s property. Having unauthorized access into someone’s computer by sending hacking software’s to track user’s actions and get data and personal information like passwords for online banking it is illegal.

Now governments along with enforcement agencies are trying to find the most appropriate ways to regulate the internet and enforce more laws. However, this is a major task, as what is illegal in one country can be legal in another and therefore internet is even harder to be regulated.

Many government bodies in the country are doing their best in order to find ways for a safer environment and internet surfing. What we need to understand is that when using the internet we need to behave like we behave in our everyday lives, with respect to others and their rights.
I wish that in future Government and law enforcement agencies in Pakistan take more serious majors to solve these crimes so that our coming generation could be secure from the threats of this crime.