Need to create a pool of competent investigators: CBI Director

There is a need to create a pool of competent investigators, digital forensic analysts, prosecutors and judicial officers who are digitally aware, said Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) director RK Shukla here on Wednesday.

Shukla, who was speaking after inaugurating the first national conference on cybercrime investigation and cyber forensics here at the agency's headquarters, said: "There is a need to create a pool of competent investigators, digital forensic analysts, prosecutors and judicial officers who are digitally aware."

The CBI director said the agency is unable to fulfill its mandate in investigating interstate crimes due to the absence of consent of some state governments.

"As India stands at the cusp of a digital revolution, law enforcement officers should focus on basics that will help keep cybercrimes under check and take effective deterrent action," he said.

Over 50 officers from the Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, experts from law enforcement agencies and academia participated in the two-day conference held in the national capital.

Professional, experts and panelists from the National Law Studies University were also part of the conference. The idea of the conference was to create a platform where the best practices on cybercrimes investigations can be discussed regularly.

Minister of State in PMO, Jitendra Singh will address the conference on its concluding day on Thursday.

Indians, who use the internet and mobile services, are growing at a compounded growth rate of 44 per cent. Ninety-seven per cent of the Indian uses mobile devices.

Earlier, the CBI had registered a case for data theft against Cambridge Analytica. Facebook and other social media companies are being investigated by them in connection with the case.

Over 50 per cent of the cybercrime cases registered with the CBI pertain to attacks on digital financial infrastructure, credit card frauds, phishing, use of counterfeit software, hacking and internet theft.

In the State Bank of India cyber fraud case, over Rs 100 crore amount was phished. As a result of this, the bank introduced media access control and biometric system.

In another case, a person was able to withdraw money from Australia despite having no balance in his bank account. He did this by adding a bug to the bank's software, which allowed him to withdraw the money.

It has been found that the financial frauds usually take place on the long weekend.