Experts favour PPP projects to arrest rise in cyber crimes

There were 1,791 and 966 cases registered across country under IT Act in 2011 and 2010 respectively

Raising concerns over rising cyber crime cases, industry experts have suggested public-private partnership (PPP) projects to prevent data theft.

"The importance of data security cannot be denied. Be it of government or private sector. While the big corporates have advanced means to check data theft, mid-and small-scale firms lack such facility.

"In addition, government departments also need to further strengthen their data security mechanism. One of the best ways could be to evolve a mechanism with participation of private sector to check cyber crimes," said V K Bhati, Executive Director of ACSG Corporate, which is engaged in homeland security services.

He said there are immense business opportunities in cyber security sector. "We have recently developed system for Delhi Police and we are working with some other big names. The government should involve private sector more for cyber security," Bhati said.

Mayur Joshi, another cyber security expert, favoured use of new technology and laid stress on the need to raise awareness about data leakage and theft.

"Of late, there have been instances of data leakage in private sector. There has been hacking attempts on government websites too. Many do not come forward to report these crimes. The best way to check them is to have secure system. But companies need to be more aware about them," said Joshi, Chief Executive Officer of Indiaforensics, a firm engaged in prevention, detection and investigation of frauds.

According to National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data, there has been an increase in number of cases being registered under the Information Technology (IT) Act. As many as 4,356 cyber crime cases were registered last year as against 2,876 in 2012, an increase of 51.5%, the data showed.

There were 1,791 and 966 cases registered across the country under the IT Act in 2011 and 2010, respectively, the NCRB said. These cases were related to hacking and breach of confidentiality among others.

NCRB says that "cyber crimes are a new class of crimes rapidly increasing due to extensive use of Internet and information technology enabled services".