Opening Forensic Labs, Training Sleuths, Hiring Consultants: Centre Reboots India's Cybercrime Fight

While India is rapidly going digital in most spheres and the number of internet users is soaring, cyber threats are also growing at various levels. To combat the situation, the ministry of home affairs (MHA) has taken several steps to strengthen the mechanism to deal with virtual crimes decisively. States have been funded for opening labs and hiring cyber consultants, while a centralised coordinator has been established by the central government.

The MHA has set up the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) to deal with all types of cybercrimes in the country, in a coordinated and comprehensive manner.

As investigating virtual crimes requires a lot of technical education, various courses have been introduced for the police and for assistance at an early stage a laboratory has been established in Delhi.

“The state of the art National Cyber Forensic Laboratory has been established, as a part of the I4C, at CyPAD, Dwarka, New Delhi to provide early stage cyber forensic assistance to Investigating Officers (IOs) of State/UT Police,” the MHA said told the Lok Sabha in December.

Online training courses for investigators

Various online courses have been introduced for police personnel and judicial officers where they can learn critical aspects of cybercrime and can apply them during high-quality probes into such offences.

“Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) platform, namely ‘CyTrain’ portal has been developed under Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), for capacity building of police officers/judicial officers through online course on critical aspects of cybercrime investigation, forensics, prosecution etc. along with certification. More than 11,200 Police Officers from States/UTs are registered and more than 2750 Certificates issued through the portal,” the home ministry told Parliament.

Portal for free flow of cybercrime complaints

The MHA has established the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal (www.cybercrime.gov.in) as part of I4C to enable the public to report such incidents with a special focus on cases against women and children.

Cybercrime incidents reported on this portal, their conversion into FIRs and subsequent action thereon are handled by the state/union territory law enforcement agencies (LEAs) concerned, according to the MHA.

“Citizen Financial Cyber Fraud Reporting and Management System, under I4C, has been launched for immediate reporting of financial frauds and to stop siphoning off funds by the fraudsters,” the ministry said.

Since coordination plays an important role, seven joint cyber coordination teams have been constituted under I4C, covering the whole country based upon cybercrime hotspots/areas having multi-jurisdictional issues and in consultation with states/UTs to enhance the coordination framework among the LEAs of the regions, as per the MHA.

“Ministry of Home Affairs has provided central assistance under the ‘Assistance to States for Modernization of Police’ Scheme to the State Governments for the acquisition of latest weaponry, training gadgets, advanced communication/forensic equipment, Cyber Policing equipment etc. The State Governments formulate State Action Plans (SAPs) as per their strategic priorities and requirements including combating cyber crimes,” said the ministry.

According to the government, central financial assistance of more than Rs 1,500 crore has been disbursed under the scheme during the last three financial years.

Steps to deal with cybercrimes against women and children

In the virtual world, children and women remain easy targets for criminals. So, to establish cyber forensic labs and training, the MHA has released funds under Cyber Crime Prevention against Women and Children (CCPWC). These funds can be used by states for setting up labs and hiring cyber consultants.

“Ministry of Home Affairs has provided financial assistance to the tune of Rs 96.13 crore under Cyber Crime Prevention against Women and Children (CCPWC) Scheme to the States/UTs for setting up of cyber forensic-cum-training laboratories, hiring of junior cyber consultants and capacity building of Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs), public prosecutors and judicial officers,” the MHA said.

Cyber forensic-cum-training laboratories have been commissioned in 28 states/UTs, namely Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Mizoram, Odisha, Sikkim, Telangana, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Goa, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Dadra and Nagar Haveli & Daman and Diu, Punjab, Assam, Tripura, Puducherry, J&K, Chandigarh, Rajasthan and West Bengal, as per the government.

“Training curriculum has been prepared for LEA personnel, public prosecutors and judicial officers for better handling of investigation and prosecution. States/UTs have been requested to organize training programmes. More than 19,600 LEA personnel, judicial officers and prosecutors have been provided training on cyber crime awareness, investigation, forensics etc. under CCPWC Scheme,” the home ministry said.

The cyber forensics lab at the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) has been notified as an Examiner of Electronic Evidence in the exercise of the powers conferred by Section 79A of the Information Technology Act, 2000, and is equipped with tools to carry out analysis of digital evidence extracted from data storage and mobile devices. The cyber forensics lab is being utilised for the analysis of cyber security incidents and supports LEAs in forensic analysis, according to officials. CERT-In also imparts training to the LEAs through workshops.

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