Want industry to partner with govt to counter cyber crimes: Rao

He said, 'We have to be vigilant so that such crimes come down drastically'

Telangana Minister today asked the industry to collaborate with the government to combat cyber crimes while stressing on the need to have a dedicated workforce to defeat the hackers.

"We want industry to partner with us and collaborate with us to counter cyber crimes and cyber terrorism," Information Technology minister K T Rama Rao said addressing a conference on 'Cyber Security' here organised by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

Quoting the national Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data, he said the cyber crimes were on a continuous rise. "We have to be vigilant so that such crimes come down drastically."

Quoting another report, Rao said India is in the second position in the list of countries with maximum cyber attacks on mobile devices. "We (India) are the third largest economy. A sophisticated cyber assault had cost Indian individuals and companies USD 4 billion loss by July 2013."

"We have to be very vigilant to ensure that our cyber security measures are of high standards to defeat the hackers across the world who target us," the minister said.

India has 22,000 certified cyber security professionals which is very less compared to the requirement of 77,000, according to analysts and studies, Rao said pointing out China the second largest economy has 25 million cyber warriors.

"In order to prevent future cyber attacks, companies and individuals must adopt suitable cyber security measures as cyber-crimes challenges cannot be tackled with normal security products and we need dedicated cyber security workforce," he said.

Additional Director General of Police of Crime Investigation Department (CID) in Telangana T Krishna Prasad said plans are afoot to set up 'Cyber Labs' in all districts of the state on the lines of 'Cyber Lab' existing in CID here.