Tuesday, March 22, 2011


It is the most common type of Cyber crime being committed across the world. Hacking has been defined in section 66 of The Information Technology Act, 2000 as follows "whoever with the intent to cause or knowing that he is likely to cause wrongful loss or damage to the public or any person destroys or deletes or alters any information residing in a computer resource or
diminishes its value or utility or affects it injuriously by any means commits hacking".

Punishment for hacking under the above mentioned section is imprisonment for three years or fine which may extend Upto two lakh rupees or both. A Hacker is a person who breaks in or trespasses a computer system. Hackers are of different types ranging from code hackers to crackers to cyber punks to freaks. Some hackers just enjoy cracking systems and gaining access to them as an ordinary pastime; they do not desire to commit any further crime. Whether this itself would constitute a crime is a matter of fact. At most such a crime could be equated with criminal trespass.