Awareness only way to fight cyber crime: Experts

Describing cyber crime as a rising menace in India, experts on Thursday said proper awareness, assessment, and implementation of security policies were the way forward to fight the malady.

Discussing the nuances of cyber security threats at a seminar here, they said that with the offenders in the country constantly evolving, corporates need to sharpen their security at equal speed to overwhelm the mischief makers.

"India is called the ransomeware (a virus) capital of Asia. The cyber threats are rising to steeply here that corporate should not only enhance their security protocols but also impart security training to its employees to minimise the risk factors," said Sandeep Sengupta, chief of a city-based data security company.

"Risk assessment and risk management, implementation of security policy is a must for the corporate sector. Also a quarterly security audit of network, a software audit and data centre audit would help in preventing the hacks," he said at the seminar "Information Technology - Challenges and Opportunities" organised by the Bengal National Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Echoing his statements, senior officers of state police's cyber cell said issues like debit card and credit card fraud and bank account hacking, that was not reported frequently even a few years back, have become everyday incidents now.

"In cyber crime, the criminal has an advantage of anonymity and they do not have to be physically present to harm someone. The fraudsters often get friendly and build a relationship with people to get access to personal information. As a result, sectors like banks and BPOs, dealing with valuable data are facing the heat," Bidit Mondal, Officer in-Charge, Cyber police, Bidhannagar Commissionerate said.

Cautioning against fake websites coming up with job offers and fake emails offering hefty loans, the officer said, "though there is substantial improvement in police infrastructure against cyber crime in the last few years. awareness among people is the key to fight it."

On the legal challenges against the cyber offenders, special public prosecutor Bivas Chatterjee described the proceedings as a slippery slope as collecting evidence about such crimes and authenticating it is difficult.

"In case of a cyber crime through social media, the biggest hurdle is to get the necessary data from the service provider. Unlike the telecommunication companies, the social media websites often refuse to share their user's information due to security reasons. They even decline to share the IP address used to post or share something online," said Chatterjee, who deals with Cyber and E-evidence law.

He said one should be made aware of the fine line between investigation and violation of human rights in these cases.

"I have proposed Ato the national police academy that they start a course on human rights violation during the investigation of cyber crime. One has be careful as so much of personal stuff is shared online now a days,"he said.

"Police should be 100 percent sure before arresting someone as things like IP and email and other online identities can be duplicated," he added.

--IANS

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