: The city which has the distinction of being a software hub and has a significant chunk of IT professionals, may soon need to establish a Cyber Crime Cell to exclusively handle cases of ransomware cases.
The term ransomware in the IT space refers to cyber criminals locking consumers’ devices - from desktops, laptops, tablets, mobiles and more recently, wearables paired with smartphones, using unbreakable encryption on users’ files. The criminals then demand ransom to send a code to the user to ‘unlock’ his own device and access his own data.
Assistant Commissioner of Police (Cyber Crimes) here, K.C.S. Raghuvir said as far as ransomware was concerned, people were hesitant to complain and apprehensive as it involved talking about personal data - be it treasured family photos, tax returns and banking records or even their surfing pornographic sites, he said.
However, the police officer said that with cyber crimes in general on the rise and what with cases of ransomware infection cropping up in Hyderabad, he was sure a separate cell would be needed to tackle the problem. At an interaction organised by Symantec, its Country Manager Ritesh Chopra said while ransomware cases across the world were pegged at about 1.2 lakh in 2014-15, the past 12 months had seen it achieve new levels of maturity and menace.
Published - September 22, 2016 12:00 am IST
