AP to sponsor CID cyber cell

The information and communication technology (ICT) department of Andhra Pradesh will sponsor the crime investigation department (CID)'s cyber cell to take up pilot projects on cyber security measures, including creating awareness on, malware, trojans, spyware and firewalls. “Cyber criminals are always ahead of us, and we should try to outbeat them. The ICT department will sponsor from its own funds small-scale training programmes for the CID sleuths, right from constables to higher officials,” said state ICT principal secretary Ratna Prabha. The department would extend an assistance of up to Rs 20 lakh, excluding hardware, for each pilot project taken up by the cyber cell, starting next month.

Budget proposals over and above Rs 20 lakh would be referred to the central government for clearance, she added.

Prabha was delivering the keynote address at a seminar on ‘Digital technology in crime investigation’, jointly organised by the Andhra Pradesh CID cyber crime cell and Delhi-based Foundation Futuristic Technologies here on Wednesday.

Foundation Futuristic director Samir Dutt said new technologies bred new crimes and every crime had a digital element embedded in it. “Focusing on various digital means of investigating crime will help the police in tracking down cyber criminals more efficiently.”