By IANS
New Delhi : Law enforcement agencies across the globe should join hands and evolve a strong mechanism to fight cyber crimes that have emerged as new threats to nations, Home Minister Shivraj Patil said here Wednesday.
“With proliferation of e-commerce and e-governance across the globe, cyber related crimes have emerged a new threat to national security and investigating agencies should jointly work together to combat it more effectively,” Patil said inaugurating the 7th Interpol Cyber Crime Conference here.
“These criminals are very advanced, so we have to always remain one step ahead of them. Cyber crime today represents a wide array of offences. Hacking, spoofing are capable of causing serious security breaches in the information system of vital installations,” he added.
The three-day conference is being attended by the representatives from 37 countries, EUROPOL, UNODC, UNICR, Council of Europe, multinational IT firms, Indian state-run firms and the Department of Electronics.
Forty-three senior police officers from 20 Indian states are also participating in the conference.
The minister said that the potential damage on account of such attacks to the national security is immense. Globally, instances of money laundering through e-channels for terrorist funding have assumed menacing proportions.
“Internet had become a secure channel of communication among terrorists and also for hate campaigns through social networking sites. Online child pornography, online trafficking in contraband items and e-commerce frauds are some of the offences which are showing rising trends,” he said.
According to India’s IT and communication ministry, the number of Internet subscribers in the country had doubled in the last six months alone.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Director Vijay Shankar said compared to conventional crime, cyber crime presents a different set of challenges.
“From a victim’s perspective, the cyber criminal is a faceless entity with whom the person rarely comes into physical contact. The criminal has the capability to simultaneously attack several persons, each sitting thousands of miles away from the other,” Shankar said.
“There is a strong need, therefore, for concerted efforts for capacity building, training of all those associated with the criminal justice system,” he added.
Interpol General Secretary Robert K. Noble, who flew down from China early Wednesday for the conference, said: “In the next three days we will be discussing issues such as identity theft, online bank fraud, gaming on the Internet, the risks of terrorist use of the Internet and online child abuse.
“Interpol priority is to better fight cyber crime. We are increasing our training activities in many law enforcement areas,” Noble said.
“Currently, our organization is developing plans to create global and regional anti-crime centres, one of which will be dedicated to high-tech crime.
“We envisage a properly equipped centre, where police officers from Interpol member countries can work alongside experts with specific skills from the private sector,” he added.