30 November 2011 10:53 am
The public can now inform the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) on cyber crimes if people are engaged in violating of law while using computer, mobile phones and other electronic devices.
The CID can be informed about cyber crimes and related activities conducted by contacting, 0112380380, and 0112422176 or by sending an email to oic.cidcom@police.lk or to dig.cid@police.lk.
To counter and deal with the rising number of cyber crimes, the CID has established forensic and cyber labs. The CID had already established a Cyber Crime Lab and a Digital Forensic Lab.
Currently the department has already investigated about 100 cases where a number of suspects have been arrested and produced in courts for committing cyber crimes.
The Cyber Crime Lab was established in 2007 with the help of Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) which comes under ICTA. Under the No 24, Computer Crime Act of 2007 any individual who engages in computer hacking, unauthorized access to systems, manipulating, collecting, corrupting and destroying data without authorization will be taken into custody.
These cyber crimes are subjected as offences against national security, economy and public order as well as offences against criminal breach of trust.
The Lab was established as the importance was identified by the government as several countries were facing it very badly during that period.
The CID conducts digital online forensic investigations to identify and track down the suspects. They also conduct online investigations as well as computer forensics to identify the crimes and the suspects.
In Sri Lanka, there were no laws to tackle and take legal action against these cyber crimes till the Computer Crime Act was passed. Most of the victims have been young girls according to the CID.
Crimes that primarily target computer networks or devices include Computer viruses Denial-of-service attacks, Crimes that use computer networks or devices to advance other ends include Cyber-stalking, Fraud and identity theft, Information warfare and Phishing scams (SD)