The Chennai Cyber Lab was launched on the Vandalur premises of the Tamil Nadu Police Academy on Thursday with the objective of training the police force in combating cyber crimes and building competitiveness within the IT industry to deal with the new age menace.
This is the country's fifth lab initiated by the Data Security Council of India (DSCI) under the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) and only the second of its kind in South India.
Launching the facility, Director General of Police Letika Saran said the plan was to ensure that every city and district in the State had a layer of personnel trained to deal with cyber crimes. It was proposed to train as many Sub Inspectors, Inspectors, DSPs and their assistants in cyber crime modules.
Ms. Saran laid stress on the importance of equipping the police force to tackle cyber crimes as urban and rural Internet connectivity increased. “While the police force is competent and knowledgeable in detecting conventional crimes, it is necessary that basic training is provided to deal with cyber crimes that were getting much more complicated by the day,” she said.
Som Mittal, NASSCOM president, said the cyber lab that was expected to promote prevention and deterrence fulfilled a component of the DSCI's mandate to engage with the world and engender Best Practices.
As knowledge partners of the Ministry of Home Affairs, NASSCOM sought to establish more such labs apart from delivering curriculum content and developing ‘train the trainers' programmes, he said.
Pratap Reddy, Director, Cyber Security, NASSCOM, said the core objectives of the lab were to ensure capacity building in technology knowhow and back-up to law enforcement agencies, provide backward connectivity to the IT industry and assist it to reduce cyber offences and data security to government in e-governance initiatives and to raise cyber security awareness.
Amresh Pujari, Inspector General of Police, Training, said the cyber lab was a significant step towards tackling cyber crimes, which was the fastest-growing problem in the world.
S.G. Prabhakaran, Director, Lakshmi Vilas Bank, which sponsored the lab, pointed out that the Indian banking sector was the first to add another layer of security to online transactions even after a credit card user typed out the unique Card Verification Value for authentication. Public awareness was the key in reducing risk of cyber crimes, he said.
G. Dorairaj, IG (Training), Police Academy was also present.
