96 per cent of web could be illegal

Hyderabad: Former forensics ex-pert Krishna Sastry Pendyala has cracked many important cases in his career spanning 22 years, including at the Union ministry of home affairs.

He has examined digital evidence in more than 1,400 cases including the Indian Parliament attack (2001), 26/11 Mumbai attack, Nokia tax evasion, online sale of drugs etc. Krishna Sastry has been training personnel in the law enforcement agencies, including the Interpol, in over 90 countries in the area of digital crime investigation, digital forensics and related areas, even after retirement.

“Law enforcement agencies are all facing technical, legal and operational challenges to battle cybercrime and digital evidence,” he says, explaining how a digitally dominant world is making things easier for criminals.

“The misuse of technology by those indulging in criminal activities is making it difficult for the police organisations, stuck in the traditional mould of policing, to solve such sophisticated crimes. We will need a structured approach with technical expertise to address and resolve cybercrimes. Today, criminals are using different techniques and technologies to evade tracking and tracing. They use many ways to do it — an important message could be encrypted under a photo or a video, through an anonymous network that helps you send information under a false name, peer-to-peer network and data compression etc. A lot of people also use Bitcoins to convert their black money into white.”

“Today, what we are accessing on the Internet through various search engines is four per cent of web data. Approximately, 96 per cent of Internet could be managed by the underworld/criminals, called Dark Net or Dark Web, by using their technologies,” says Krishna Sastry, who currently works in an MNC as head of fraud management and digital forensics.

Krishna Sastry believes that the enforcement agencies should be equipped with technology and manpower that will help them identify a crime before it can happen. He also believes that we can get substantial data on criminals from social networking sites.

“A few developed countries are using social networking sites to profile individuals, to track, trace or identify potential criminals by monitoring the content they post on social networking sites. In a few countries, 80 per cent of the investigation starts at the Internet. Indian law enforcement agencies should start using social media in investigations.”

With emphasis being given on digital India, equal importance must  be given towards its security, failing which the data can be misused. For example, given the Aadhaar card linkages to bank accounts, voter ID cards, LPG gas connections etc., one only needs to hack the database to get important information, right from the date of birth to fingerprints of a user.

So, what must be done to combat cybercrime? “Identification of stake holders (individuals, organisations and government) is very crucial to combat cybercrimes. Aware-ness programmes should be conducted for all netizens like kids’ online safety, importance of cyber ethics, misuse of cyber technology etc., and people should be educated on what to do and what not to do on the Internet,” he says.

“Cyber security programme and re-porting cyber  security incidents to the government should be made mandatory. Strict implementation of Indian Information Technology Act and at the same time, balancing security and privacy laws is important,” he adds.