Advocate (Dr.) Prashant Mali's Blog

Ransom-payers are also the cause of ransomware proliferation: Prashant Mali The ransom to retrieve files was reportedly $300, to be paid in virtual currency bitcoins Nikita Puri   July 1, 2017 Last Updated at 21:20 IST Operations at a terminal of the country’s largest container port,  Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust  in Mumbai, came to a standstill earlier this week. The process of loading and unloading containers was halted as the port’s computers shut down after a major  cyber attack  that swept across the globe. The aggressiveness of the malware showed that such attacks were capable of bringing both corporate and government networks to a sudden halt. The ransom to retrieve files was reportedly $300, to be paid in virtual currency bitcoins.  Cyber law  expert  Prashant Mali , also an advocate at the Bombay High Court, tells  Nikita Puri  how to prevent mass-scale civil disruptions that future cyber attacks can result in. Edited excerpts:   First  we had individual com

Can a Complainant or Victim fight his own cyber crime case in Magistrates Court or appoint his own lawyer? Note: Normally when one files a police FIR, the case is represented free of cost by the STATE in the courts i.e By Public Prosecutor. Yes !!! He can by himself or through his Expert Legal Counsel or a Lawyer. But he has to file a written application making out a case, so that the magistrate can exercise the jurisdiction as vested in him and form the requisite opinion. A plain reading of Section 301 reveals that though oral submissions before the court cannot be independent of the Prosecutor, a pleader instructed by a private person can definitely file written submissions before the court independent of the Public Prosecutor, if the court so permits. That apart, Sections 301 and 302 cover two different situations. Section 301 envisages a situation where the Public Prosecutor is in charge of a case and a private person instructs his pleader to intervene. In such ca