Cyber crime should get priority attention: Patil

NEW DELHI: With cyber crime posing greater threat to national security, the Government on Wednesday favoured 'priority attention' of lawmakers and law enforcement agencies to create a cyber culture security awareness and evolve an 'effective' preventive measure.

"Notwithstanding its late entrance to the arena of serious crimes, cyber crime today represents a wide array of offenses. Hacking, spoofing and botnet attacks are capable of causing serious security breaches in the information system of vital installations," Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil said in his inaugural speech at the seventh International Cyber Crime Conference.

"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," Patil said and also added that Internet had become a secure channel of communication among terrorists and also for hate campaigns through social networking sites.

Growing instances of such crimes constantly remind us the need to create a culture of cyber security awareness and need to evolve effective preventive measures, he said.
   
Though India has developed a full fledged indigenous cyber forensic software package, "we have a long way to go and are in the process of evolving systems and methodologies to stem the menace," he said.

Terming the cyber crime as 'serious', he said it should "capture the priority attention of lawmakers and members of the law enforcement agencies."

Calling for a priority attention, the Home Minister said organised criminals had found internet a lucrative means to generate huge proceeds of crime.

"Online child pornography, online trafficking in contrabands and e-commerce frauds are some of the offenses, which are showing a rising trends," Patil said and added that acts of vandalism and cheating were increasingly frustrating e-governance efforts.

Stressing on a combine domestic efforts and international efforts, he said "no sovereign nation can afford to leave vulnerability in their technology apparatus, which can be exploited by terrorists and organised crime syndicates."

Need to honour and quick response to the Interpol references and bilateral requests, liberal sharing of forensic technology and more cross-country training exchange programmes besides timely alert could prove a deterrent against the cyber menace, he said.

He said enforcement authorities required quick response from the service providers for network monitoring, provisions of traffic data, data storage and forensic support from the service providers and expressed hope that the matter would be taken up with industry representatives, who were also participating in the conference.

"The technology is going to grow in leaps and bounds. While we are meeting here, the perpetrators of the crime will also be meeting somewhere else to counter and find new ways to continue with their menace," Patil said and cautioned that even bright brains were being attracted by the perpetrators of the cyber crime.