Bangalore gets cyber lab

Bangalore on Wednesday got a cyber lab that will act as a centre for training the personnel from the police department as well as income tax, banking and many other sectors in issues relating to cyber crimes.

The third such facility in the country, the lab has been set up on a public-private partnership model.

The lab has been set up under the joint initiative of the Nasscom, Karnataka Police and the Canara Bank. Speaking on the occasion, Nandkumar Saravade, director, Cyber Security and Compliance, Nasscom, said the organisation was also in the process of setting up a similar lab in Pune, in addition to the existing two in Mumbai and Thane.

"With the increase in the use of IT in day-to-day lives, we see emergence of both new challenges and threats. Various forms of cyber crime are on the rise around the world and while India continues to be among the safest places in respect to a strong security framework, there is a continuous need to be vigilant," he pointed out.

The cyber lab in Bangalore will be attached to the Corps of Detectives (CoD) of the state police. The lab will have a full-time project manager from the police, two instructors and part-time volunteers from the student community.

The training will include familiarisation on areas such as Internet, browsing, email and online transactions among others and education on what constitutes cyber crime. Each batch will have 20 trainees, of which 15 will from the state police department, said Srinivasan K R, DG & IGP of Karnataka police. He said in the first year, the lab would train about 1,000 persons.

Karnataka was the first state to set up a Cyber Crime Police Station in 2001. Since then, the police station has been witnessing a steady rise in the number of cyber crime-related cases.

From just four cases registered in the first year, to 42 cases in 2005 and this year till date, the police stations has received over 100 cases.

The cyber police, however, said these cases were targeted more against individuals than the enterprises.

"The cases are more related to pornography, spam, hacking or identity theft than the more serious crimes of that nature," said Sanjay Vir Singh, DIG, Economic Offences, CoD.

He said the pornographic mails were not very serious in nature like child pornography. Of the 42 cases reported last year, 30 were hacking-related.