Advocate (Dr.) Prashant Mali's Blog

The Telecommunications Act of 2023 has strengthened the dispute resolution framework by introducing an online grievance redressal system. The aim is to expedite the resolution of conflicts between telecommunications companies and consumers while ensuring transparency in the redressal process. Following an inquiry, a telecom company found violating license or service terms may incur severe penalties, spectrum holdings cancellation, service restrictions, or even be prohibited from providing telecom services, depending on the seriousness of the breach.  How does the online grievance redressal system operate, and who plays key roles?   An Adjudicating Officer (AO), appointed by the Centre and not below the rank of joint secretary, will conduct inquiries to resolve disputes between telecom service providers and consumers. Additionally, a separate Designated Appeals Committee (DAC) will be formed, consisting of officers at the rank of additional secretaries. Individuals dissatisfied with an

बॅंकेतून ऑनलाइन पैसे गेलयास १५५२६० हा हेल्पलाइन क्रमांक करा डायल तंत्रज्ञान जेवढे प्रगत होत जाते तेवढेच त्याच्यामागे धोकेही चालत येतात. ऑनलाइन चोरी हा त्यातलाच एक प्रकार! विशेष म्हणजे शिक्षित, अनुभवी असलेले व्यक्ती याला बळी (Online fraud) पडतात. तुमचे क्रेडिट कार्ड अपडेट करायचे आहे, तुमच्या पिन नंबरची मुदत संपली, तुमच्या खात्यात अमुक रक्कम जमा करायची आहे, अशा एक ना अनेक क्लूप्त्या वापरत सायबर गुन्हेगार नागरिकांना फसवत असतात. अशा सायबर गुन्हेगारांवर आळा घालण्यासाठी केंद्र सरकारने आता पाऊल उचलले आहे. केंद्रीय गृहमंत्रालय आणि दिल्ली पोलिसांच्या सायबर सेलने अशी यंत्रणा विकसित केली की ज्या माध्यमातून लोकांना दिलासा मिळणार आहे. केंद्रीय गृहमंत्रालयाने १५५२६० हा क्रमांक हेल्पलाइन म्हणून जारी केला आहे. ज्यांचे पैसे खात्यातून उडाले असतील त्यांनी त्वरित या क्रमांकावर कॉल करावा. कारण, सायबर गुन्ह्यांमध्ये वेळेला फार महत्त्व असते. जेवढ्या लवकर हेल्पलाइनवर कॉल कराल तेवढे गुन्हेगार शोधून काढण्यास आणि रक्कम परत मिळण्यास मदत होते. इंटरनेटला कुठलीही भौगोलिक मर्यादा नसल्याने अगदी विदेशात बसलेला हॅकरही त

A Canadian insurance company infected by ransomware virus paid off the cybercriminals using its cyber insurance policy. Their British reinsurers, having to disburse 109.25 Bitcoins, wanted it back from the blackmailing cybercriminals. After infection, the unnamed Canadian company suffered a total lockdown of all of its systems and asked its reinsurance firm to pay the ransom so it could get back on its feet. Paying off blackmailers holding a company to ransom is never advisable, many a time it is against the local law. Despite a negotiation that made criminals bring down their initial demand of $1.2m to $950k, the decryption tool provided had to be run on each and every affected device on the company's network. It took five days to decrypt 20 servers and "10 business days" to unlock 1,000 desktop computers. Neither company was going to pay out and forget the incident. The English reinsurer hired Chainalysis Inc, a "blockchain investigations firm&q

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

Petya/Petwrap ransomware What is Petya Ransomeware do? Ans:  Ransomware, Petya does not encrypt files on a targeted system one by one. Instead, Petya reboots victims computers and encrypts the hard drive's master file table (MFT) and rendering the master boot record (MBR) inoperable, restricting access to the full system by seizing information about file names, sizes, and location on the physical disk. Petya replaces the computer's MBR with its own malicious code that displays the ransom note and leaves computers unable to boot. Why it spreads fast? Ans : Petya ransomware successful in spreading because it combines both a client-side attack (CVE-2017-0199) and a network based threat (MS17-010) So patch both first! Affected countries: UK, Ukraine, India, the Netherlands, Spain, Denmark, and others Behavior: Encrypts MFT (Master File Tree) tables for NTFS partitions and overwrites the MBR (Master Boot Record) with a custom bootloader that s

Cybercrime : HOW TO SERVE SUMMONS, PROCESS, WARRANT TO PARTY RESIDING ABROAD- Comprehensive guidelines referred to in Letter No. 55019/17/2017-Legal Cell, dated ______ of Internal security Division, Ministry of Home Affairs regarding service of summons/notices/judicial process on persons residing abroad. -- 1. Section 105 of Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) speaks of reciprocal arrangements to be made by Central Government with the Foreign Governments with regard to the service of summons / warrants / judicial processes. The Ministry of Home Affairs has entered into Mutual Legal Assistance treaty/Agreements with 22 countries which provide for serving of documents. These countries are Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom, Canada, Kazakhastan, United Arab Emirates, Russia, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Ukraine, Mongolia, Thailand, France, Bahrain, South Korea, United States of America, Singapore, South Africa, Mauritius, Belarus, Spain and Kuwait. In other cases the ministry makes a

Cyber Security Questions for Board of Directors. Although Board of directors have added cybersecurity risk to their agendas, there is no standard way for boards to think about cybersecurity, much less time-tested guidelines to help them navigate the issue. For boards, cybersecurity is an issue of enterprise risk. As with all enterprise risks, the key focus is mitigation, not prevention. This universally understood enterprise risk guideline is especially helpful in the context of cybersecurity because  no one can prevent all cyber breaches . Every company is a target, and a sufficiently motivated and well-resourced adversary can and will get into a company’s network. Consequently, terms like “cyber defense” are insufficient descriptors of an effective posture because they evoke the image that corporations can establish an invincible perimeter around their networks to prevent access by bad actors. Today, it’s more accurate to think of the board-level cybersecurity review goa

Section 66(D) Cyber Crime - THE MYSTERY BEHIND HOAX MAIL SOLVED –ONE HELD                          On 20-04-2017, the sleuths of Commissioner’s Task Force, West Zone team with the assistance of S.R Nagar police, on credible information made sustained efforts and solved the mystery behind hoax mail which was generated from Hyderabad.   Details of apprehended Accused :- Motaparthi Vamshi Krishna @ vamshi chowdary S/o. M.A.sV. Prasad, age. 32 yrs, Occ. Transport agent  R/o. Flat no.G-1, TP Sanjana  Amrutha Residency, Miyapur, R.R.Dist, N/o.  Dendullur (village & Mandal), West Godavari Dist, A.P.  Brief facts On 15-04-2017 at 1647 hours commissioner of police,Mumbai received a mail from a mail ID ununn0801@gmail.com  claimed to be woman in the email and stated that she overheard six men chating in a hotel and stating that all 23 people have to split from here and board flights in three cities i.e Hyderabad, Chennai and Mumbai to hijack planes at a time tomorrow.  On th

PRASHANT MALI BOOK RELEASED BY HON CHIEF JUSTICE DR MANJULA CHELLUR Prashant Mali Authored Third Edition of Book "Cyber Law & Cyber Crimes Simplified " Released by Hon'ble Chief Justice, Dr. (Mrs.) Manjula Chellur, Bombay High Court . this book is Fore worded by Hon. Justice Madan Lokur, Supreme Court of India. Book is now available in High Court and with Aarti Publications, Fort Prashant mali addressing judges in cyber crime investigation training Prashant Mali  Then addressed around 400 judges and public prosecutors ahead in the training program held at Maharashtra Judicial Academy

What is SEXTORTION? A form of sexual exploitation that employs non-physical forms of coercion by threatening to release sexual images or information to extort monetary or sexual favors from the victim. Modus Operandi 1) The scammers persuade the dater to send sexually explicit photos. Once they get the photos, the scammers identify themselves as law enforcement, telling the dater they sent the pictures to a minor. They then tell the person to pay up in order to avoid arrest. The scammers are not only identifying themselves as law enforcement, they are also using actual names of officers. “These people are being contacted by Detective Don Peterson and it isn’t me,” Peterson told the paper. More than 100 people have paid between $500 to $1,500 to try to avoid arrest. 2) The groups is to create online accounts of females and post pictures of attractive ladies to draw clients. They would then post pornographic images and entice their victims to have video chats with them, usually

New Age Cyber Crimes : 2016 New trends in cybercrime are emerging all the time, with estimated costs to the global economy running to billions of dollars. In the past, cybercrime was committed mainly by individuals or small groups. Today, we are seeing highly complex cybercriminal networks bring together individuals from across the globe in real time to commit crimes on an unprecedented scale. Criminal organizations turning increasingly to the Internet to facilitate their activities and maximize their profit in the shortest time. The crimes themselves are not necessarily new – such as theft, fraud, illegal gambling, sale of fake medicines – but they are evolving in line with the opportunities presented online and therefore becoming more widespread and damaging . Identity theft Identity theft and fraud is one of the most common types of cybercrime. The term Identity Theft is used, when a person purports to be some other person, with a view to crea