1[43. 2 [Penalty and compensation] for damage to computer, computer system, etc.--If any person without permission of the owner or any other person who is in charge of a computer, computer system or computer network,--
- (a) accesses or secures access to such computer, computer system or computer network 3 [or computer resource];
- (b) downloads, copies or extracts any data, computer data base or information from such computer, computer system or computer network including information or data held or stored in any removable storage medium;
- (c) introduces or causes to be introduced any computer contaminant or computer virus into any computer, computer system or computer network;
- (d) damages or causes to be damaged any computer, computer system or computer network, data, computer data base or any other programmes residing in such computer, computer system or computer network;
- (e) disrupts or causes disruption of any computer, computer system or computer network;
- (f) denies or causes the denial of access to any person authorised to access any computer, computer system or computer network by any means;
- (g) provides any assistance to any person to facilitate access to a computer, computer system or computer network in contravention of the provisions of this Act, rules or regulations made thereunder;
- (h) charges the services availed of by a person to the account of another person by tampering with or manipulating any computer, computer system, or computer network;
- 4 [(i) destroys, deletes or alters any information residing in a computer resource or diminishes its value or utility or affects it injuriously by any means;
- (j) steal, conceal, destroys or alters or causes any person to steal, conceal, destroy or alter any computer source code used for a computer resource with an intention to cause damage;]
5 [he shall be liable to pay damages by way of compensation to the person so affected.]
Explanation.--For the purposes of this section,--
(i) "computer contaminant" means any set of computer instructions that are designed--
- (a) to modify, destroy, record, transmit data or programme residing within a computer, computer system or computer network; or
- (b) by any means to usurp the normal operation of the computer, computer system, or computer network;
(ii) "computer data-base" means a representation of information, knowledge, facts, concepts or instructions in text, image, audio, video that are being prepared or have been prepared in a formalised manner or have been produced by a computer, computer system or computer network and are intended for use in a computer, computer system or computer network;
(iii) "computer virus" means any computer instruction, information, data or programme that destroys, damages, degrades or adversely affects the performance of a computer resource or attaches itself to another computer resource and operates when a programme, data or instruction is executed or some other event takes place in that computer resource;
(iv) "damage" means to destroy, alter, delete, add, modify or rearrange any computer resource by any means.
4 [(v) "computer source code" means the listing of programme, computer commands, design and layout and programme analysis of computer resource in any form.]
