Corporate houses and individuals affected by cyber crimes now turn to private detectives for a thorough investigation before the matter goes to the police and the courts.
Professionals leave no room for botch-ups, ensure complete privacy
NEW DELHI: More and more corporate houses and individuals affected by cyber crimes now turn to private detectives for a thorough investigation before the matter goes to the police and the courts.
Cyber law experts say the police have botched up many cases through poor handling of the electronic evidence involved. “I have come across cases where ignorant police officers have poked holes into computer floppies — crucial electronic evidence — to file them away with other documents,” says Pawan Duggal, a cyber crime lawyer.
Private cyber detectives claim they help clients in securing convictions when the matter comes up for trial. “A cyber sleuth works with the police to make a watertight case,” says Chetan Gupta, an independent cyber security consultant — industry jargon for a private cyber detective.
In the case of email hacking or corporate data theft, securing the electronic trail of the crime is essential for a conviction. Things can go horribly wrong for the victim if the investigating agency misses any link in the chain of transactions.
“In one case, a desktop was recovered from the office of a stockbroker in Mumbai as electronic evidence. During the trial it was discovered that the desktop had been tampered with. It turned out that the officer in charge of collecting the evidence had passed on the computer to his daughter, who was preparing for her Class XII board exams,” Duggal says.
This is where the private detective comes in and fills the ‘technological voids’. Most of Duggal’s clients — individual or corporate — hire the services of private cyber detectives to avoid such mishaps. “Indian law enforcement agencies display a marked hesitancy in registering, investigating and securing prosecutions in cases of cyber crime,” Duggal adds.
At a time when corporate espionage and hate mail dominate the cyber crime scene, there is no dearth of clients. “The victim could be a girl who finds her email hacked three days before her wedding or a design house suspecting an employee of spying for a rival. None of them can afford a botched up investigation,” says Kunwar Vikram Singh, MD, Lancer Networks, a private detective firm.
“Nearly 45 per cent of cyber crime complaints we get from Mumbai and Pune are related to email tracking and identity theft. The clients decide if they want to register a FIR with the police,” says Kush Wadhwa, a computer forensic expert at NII Consulting, Mumbai.
There is no dearth of clients who can shell out money. Plain email tracking can cost Rs20,000 for an individual while a corporate pays Rs20,000 a day to sleuths who could be on a case for weeks on an end.
Involving the police is a call the client takes. “For many corporate houses, cyber crime can be bad publicity, and they may not want the police to be involved,” says Singh. “Victims of hate mail or ID theft, however, demand serious police action,” he adds.
The detectives also rely on informers and sources within the ISP circuit. This helps gather network information related to locations of IP addresses and information about traffic flow across ISP servers. When this doesn’t work, they liaison with the police to get the needed information.
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