CENTRAL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH BIHAR

(DEPARTMENT OF LAW)

Subject- CORPORATE CRIME/WHITE COLLAR CRIME

TOPIC- White Collar Crime in Cyber Crime

SUBMITTED TO: -Dr. Deo Narayan Singh

SUBMITTED BY- Rahul Abhishek

Enrolment No. CUSB2013131025
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

It gives me incredible pleasure to present my project of Interpretation of Statutes on the topic

of “White Collar Crime in Cyber Crime”
I would like to enlighten my readers regarding this topic and I hope I have tried my best to
pave the way for bringing more luminosity to this topic.
I am grateful to my corporate crime/white collar crime faculty “Dr. Deo Narayan Singh” who
has given me the idea and encouraged me to venture this project. I would like to thank
librarian of CUSB, Gaya for his interest in providing me a study materials. Finally, I would
like to thank my parents for the financial support.

RAHUL ABHISHEK
INTRODUCTION

The evolution of criminology has provided various theories related to the behaviour of the
criminal and the reasons of the happenings of the crimes. One such theory was the Rational
choice theory where a person commits the crime because of his situations. These situation
based theories focussed more on the social and economic determinants of crime, such as
family background and level of wealth. But this thought was criticized by the Criminologist
and Sociologist Edwin H. Sutherland when he introduced and popularized the term “white
collar crimes” in the year 1939. He defined the term as a crime committed by a person of
honourableness and high social strata in the course of his job or occupation. 1 These crimes
are done by unethical people in the thirst of gaining more and more from their business, job
or occupation. These crimes are mainly for the financial purposes. An example of White
collar crimes are-Bank Fraud, Blackmail, Bribery, Cellular Phone Fraud, Computer Fraud,
Counterfeiting, Credit Card Fraud, Currency Schemes, Fake Employment Placement Rackets,
Forgery, Health Care Fraud etc.

White collar crimes have evolved its dimension with the passage of time. The major
transformation in this category of crime has taken place when the innovation of technology
blessed us with the internet. The rise of the internet has flowed the river of nuances by giving
birth to various computer crimes or cybercrimes. This leads to the fusion of white collar
crimes and cybercrimes.

The main question which the author wants to pose: What is the fusion of White collar and
cybercrimes? What are the laws dealing with it? What are the revolutionary cases of these
crimes?

1
Sutherland, Edwin Hardin (1950). White Collar Crime. New York: Dryden Press, p. 9.
FUSION OF WHITE COLLAR AND CYBER CRIMES

Most numbers of crimes on the internet are white collar crimes as they do not involve any
violence and they are only financially motivated. Before internet age these crimes only
outside the computer purview but now they are occurring at a wide pace by the source of
internet and internet world. Any crime committed on the Internet is referred to as a
cybercrime. White collar, cybercrimes seems to be innocent as there is a lack of violence and
they do not occur on the streets. The laws for these crimes has enlarged their dimensions and
we are getting more stringent laws for these white collar, cybercrimes. Many white collar
crimes occur on the internet every day. Here are some examples;

Computer Intrusion (Hacking)

It is one of the white collar crime, cybercrime which occurs instantly on the internet. Hacking
is a term generally defined as the accessing of computer or internet without having proper
authorization. Hacking is manipulation of the inner working of the information of the
technology2. Hackers attack the private information of a user for financial gains and monetary
benefits. There are other purposes for the act of hacking like someone accessing his family’s
email account, will technically account as hackers.

In India sec 65 and 66 of the IT Act deals with the act of hacking, whereas section 70 of the
Act defines the punishment for the same. Hacking includes various activities as per the law
like introducing malicious software, destroying information, downloading of copies,
interference, unauthorized access to the information.

The revolutionary case in the field of Hacking was the case of September 1999 when some
hackers broke into the website of NASDAQ and American Stock Exchange. This case has
been remarked as a “bold electronic affront to the world’s financial market”.

The offense of hacking forms a cycle of offenses, if done with the intention of committing
further crimes, the parallel of those crimes are the offense of theft, fraud, forgery etc.

2
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/definition/hacking visited on 5 Jun. 21.
There are different forms of hacking like disruption of the information system, execution of
malicious software that modifies or destroys the data example “I love you, Melissa” a virus
which was a controversy in 1999 after taking down the internet for few days and similar other
“Trojan Horses”.

Salami Attacks3

But the type of hacking which includes in the white collar crimes is the “Salami Attacks”
which occurs mainly in the financial area. These attacks go unnoticed due to their performing
very little alterations. An example of Salami Attacks are the Ziegler case, where 10 cents was
deducted from the bank’s account.it was taking place in every deposited amount. Similarly,
case which took place recently in May 2017 by the Want to cry ransomware demanding of
ransom has taken place in the form of bitcoins cryptocurrency by the computer users running
the Microsoft Windows operating system by encrypting data.

3
https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191744150.001.0001/acref-9780191744150-e-
2812#:~:text=Source%3A%20A%20Dictionary%20of%20the,holds%20their%20bank%20account%20details.
Visited on 5 Jun. 21.
KIND OF WHITE COLLAR CRIME ON THE INTERNET

Cyber/Internet Fraud4

Another kind of white collar crime on the internet is the cyber fraud which occurs when a
person intercept/ hacks the other person’s computer for accessing personal information which
mainly involves credit card information, social security numbers, and other bank account
information. As like hacking cyber frauds are also unidentifiable. Online auction fraud is also
a crime an individual may commit unknowingly, or be unaware of the severe consequences.
There is another category in the list of fraud i.e., Wire fraud which takes place via email, text,
fax, etc. It involves interstate communication and is illegal. It can be against both the
individual and corporations. The banking and financial sector are the fraud against the
corporation.

In India, we don’t have any direct law for cyber fraud except the frauds relating to e-
commerce u/s 44 of the IT Act which is not even a criminal liability. But, section
25(Fraudulent Act), section 415 and 416(Cheating by Impersonation) and Section 417 to
420(Aggravated Cheating) of IPC can deal with internet fraud it comes within the section 415
of IPC i.e., “Cheating”, due to debate on the term “Fraud”. In the IT Act Section, 71 can also
deal with the act of cyber fraud i.e., Penalty for misrepresentation.

Theft of identity

This white collar cybercrime is related to the theft of data or data related crimes. It occurs
when the identity of one appropriated by another. Identity theft is the crime of obtaining the
personal or financial information of another person to use their identity to commit fraud, such
as making unauthorized transactions or purchases. Identity theft is committed in many
different ways and its victims are typically left with damage to their credit, finances, and
reputation.5

4
https://www.delta-net.com/compliance/fraud-awareness/faqs/what-is-cyber-fraud Visited on 7 Jun. 21.
5
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/identitytheft.asp visited on 7 Jun. 21.
There are different types of Identity Theft namely IP spoofing, page jacking, cross-site
scripting, etc. In I spoofing an individual impersonates the computer of the victim for
accessing the privileged protocols without authorization, it is done by the help of software.

Page jacking is the faking of the website so that the user reached to some other site thinking
of a different site. It is done by reprogramming the logo or link to that particular site. Cross-
site crossing forced the computer of the user to send restricted information without the
permission of that user/owner. These identity thefts are mainly for gaining in the terms of
financial or information based. These white collar crimes on the internet occur instantly
without our knowing.

The biggest case of Identity theft has taken place in January 2009, when a person named
Albert Gonzalez, arrested for launching a global scheme for stealing data from 130 million
credit and debit cards by hacking into 7 major companies. He is America’s one of most
cybercrime kingpins.

In India, before the 2008 amendment data theft comes under Section 66 of IT Act. But after
the amendment, there has been the introduction of new offences in sections 66A to 66D in the
IT Act. In India, in Gurgaon, only 70 cases of identity theft and fake social networking
profiles have been registered till now in 2012.

One of the most prominent forms of identity theft is Phishing: - Phishing is a method of
identity theft that relies on individuals unwittingly volunteering personal details or
information that can be then be used for nefarious purposes. It is often carried out through the
creation of a fraudulent website, email, or text appearing to represent a legitimate firm. A
scammer may use a fraudulent website that appears on the surface to look the same as the
legitimate website. Visitors to the site, thinking they are interacting with a real business, may
submit their personal information, such as social security numbers, account numbers, login
IDs, and passwords, to this site. The scammers then use the information submitted to steal
visitors' money, identity, or both; or to sell the information to other criminal parties. Phishing
may also occur in the form of emails or texts from scammers that are made to appear as if
they are sent from a legitimate business. These fake emails or texts may install programs like
ransomware that can allow scammers to access a victim's computer or network.6
6
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/phishing.asp visited on 7 Jun. 21.
The most revolutionary Identity theft was done by an Indian Married Couple in US, Amar
Singh, and Neha Punjabi Singh. They have done a scam of a $ 13 Million scam by skimming
of credit cards and phishing through the internet. The identities extracted online has been sold
to different people for staying in 5-star hotel or rent expensive cars or private jets. A
shopping market has been formed for these identities sale at discounted price.

Phishing is mainly of 3 types-

 Dragnet Method,
 Rod and Reel method and
 Lobster pot method.

A recent trend of Phishing has emerged named as Vishing. It is called the voice phishing
where someone will call you and deceive their identities by introducing themselves from the
bank and then extracting the detailed account information. These calls are interlinked with the
Fraud control department.it is very disturbing and complex system of Phishing where a
person without his knowing give his information and then suffers a huge financial and
monetary loss.

Cases of a Phishing scam

 RBI PHISHING SCAM

In this, there was a scam where the users get a notification that they can win 10 lakhs in 48
hours and after clicking that they reached to a site looking similar to RBI site. The users give
their personal information there like password, account number, etc.

 ICC world cup 2011

This is one of the highest standard cases of Phishing where a clone of the site of ICC has
been formed. They lure the visitors with various schemes and offers for the world cup. The
users were asked their credit details and other personal information. This was done solely for
the purpose of financial gain.

Copyright Piracy

Copyright infringement (at times referred to as piracy) is the use of works protected by
copyright law without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby
infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the copyright holder, such as the right to
reproduce, distribute, display or perform the protected work, or to make derivative works.
The copyright holder is typically the work's creator, or a publisher or other business to whom
copyright has been assigned. Copyright holders routinely invoke legal and technological
measures to prevent and penalize copyright infringement.

Copyright infringement disputes are usually resolved through direct negotiation, a notice and
take down process, or litigation in civil court. Egregious or large-scale commercial
infringement, especially when it involves counterfeiting, is sometimes prosecuted via the
criminal justice system. Shifting public expectations, advances in digital technology and the
increasing reach of the Internet have led to such widespread, anonymous infringement that
copyright-dependent industries now focus less on pursuing individuals who seek and share
copyright-protected content online,[citation needed] and more on expanding copyright law to
recognize and penalize, as indirect infringers, the service providers and software distributors
who are said to facilitate and encourage individual acts of infringement by others. Estimate of
the actual economic impact of copyright infringement vary widely and depend on other
factors. Nevertheless, copyright holders, industry representatives, and legislators have long
characterized copyright infringement as piracy or theft – language which some U.S. courts
now regard as pejorative or otherwise contentious.7

CONCLUSION

The innovation of technology has given rise to white collar crimes in the internet world.
These crimes are unidentifiable as they do little alteration but the overall impact of these
7
Dowling v. United States (1985), 473 U.S. 207, pp. 217–218.
crimes is much more than we think. The laws regarding these white collar cybercrimes are
very broad, far-reaching, constantly changing, and often difficult to understand. To worsen
matters, law enforcement often lags behind the technological world, and prosecutors may
seek harsher charges and punishments for crimes they don’t quite understand. One another
problem with the white collar cybercrimes is that the investigation for these crimes takes very
long time, may be a month or a year. These crimes take place in silence, but our laws has
started to evolve and trying to cope up with these unethical activities. One day we will have
regulations which will restrict this fusion of white collar and computer world.