United States
In USA, cyber terrorism in dealt in the Patriot Act under the title “Deterrence and Prevention of Cyber Terrorism”.
Section 814 states that whoever that damage or gain unauthorized access to protected computer and then causes a person loss, affects medical examination, causes threat to public health or safety or causes damage to government computer may be punished via civil action. The punishment for attempting to damage protected computers is imprisonment for not more than 10 years, while the punishment for unauthorized access and subsequent damage to a protected computer is more than 5 years imprisonment and increases to not more than 20 years imprisonment if the offender commits the crime for the second time. Section 816 permits for development and support of cyber security forensic capabilities relating to criminal activity and cyberterrorism.
Section 814 states that whoever that damage or gain unauthorized access to protected computer and then causes a person loss, affects medical examination, causes threat to public health or safety or causes damage to government computer may be punished via civil action. The punishment for attempting to damage protected computers is imprisonment for not more than 10 years, while the punishment for unauthorized access and subsequent damage to a protected computer is more than 5 years imprisonment and increases to not more than 20 years imprisonment if the offender commits the crime for the second time. Section 816 permits for development and support of cyber security forensic capabilities relating to criminal activity and cyberterrorism.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) leads the National Cyber Investigative Joint Task Force together with the Department of Defense Cyber Crime Centre (DC3) to mitigate, neutralize, and disrupt cyber intrusions which may be a national security threat. These two agency are some of the agency that work together to curb the rise of cyber terrorism in the US along with others such as Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the National Security Agency.
United Kingdom
In the UK, the Office of Cyber Security & Information Assurance (OCSIA) is tasked to protect UK’s IT system, where it will be protecting the country against hacking of individuals, businesses, and government. The OCSIA works together with Cyber Security Operation Centre to develop a cyber security program for the government to protect the computer system from cyber attack. The new Cyber Security Strategy which was published by the two departments on 25 November 2011 sets out how the UK will support economic prosperity, protect national security and safeguard the public’s way of life by building a more trusted and resilient digital environment. In addition to that, UK’s The Terrorism Act 2000 also adds that the term “terrorism” includes the use or threat of action that seriously interferes with or disrupts an electronic system.
China
Chinese Defense Ministry has confirmed the existence of some sort of online system database in May of 2011. This Cyber Blue Team is officially engaged in cyber-defense operations, though there are fears that the unit has been involved in attacks on foreign nations.
India
The Information Technology Act 2000 was passed by the Parliament of India in May 2000, aiming to curb cyber crimes and provide a legal framework for e-commerce transactions, however it is viewed as less effective in dealing with emerging cyber attacks due to lack of awareness. The term “cyber terrorism” is absent from the terminology of the Indian law, however, section 69 of the Information Technology Act is a strong legislative measure to counter the use of encryption by terrorists. This section authorizes the Controller of Certifying Authorities (CCA) to direct any Government agency to intercept any information transmitted through any computer resource. Under the Constitution of India any person who fails to assist the Government agency in decrypting this information sought to be intercepted is liable for imprisonment up to 7 years.
Council of Europe’s Convention on Cybercrime
The Convention was signed in Budapest in 2001 and came into force in 2004. Since it was adopted, it has been signed by 46 countries of which 24 have ratified it. Non-European states have also signed and ratified the Convention, which includes Canada, Japan, USA, and the Republic of South Africa. This Convention hoped to establish common laws between nations, in order to increase the prevention of cyber attacks. The convention covered almost all types of cyber crime and most importantly acts as a call to unite nations against all forms of cyber crime. It has been supplemented by an Additional Protocol to the Convention making any publication of racist and xenophobic propaganda via computer networks a criminal offence. Currently, cyber terrorism is also studied in the framework of the Convention.
Other International Agencies
International Criminal Police Organization or INTERPOL also acts against cyber terrorism whereby it has collected information concerning cyber crimes to establish a database while developing methods to secure communication between parties with a newly developed network known as the I-24/7. Interpol also plans on the development of training programs, in order to train future crime detectors about cyber terrorism.
Under the United Nations, the UN International Telecommunications Union (ITU) has a few departments to combat cyber terrorism, such as High Level Expert Group on Cyber Security, UN Institute on Disarmement Research on cyber warfare, and also the UN Counter Terrorism Implementation Task Force on measures to be taken to counter the use of internet by terrorist. However these steps taken by the UN can be considered to be in their beginning stage as there was lack of attention given to the issue of cyber terrorism previously by the UN.
No comments:
Post a Comment