INDIA: Cyber crimes on the rise in Kerala

New cyber police station will seek to curb hacking, fraud

The Times of India
Thursday, May 26, 2005

Thiruvananthapuram -- Eve-teasers through SMS and e-mail and hackers better watch out in Kerala which is soon going to have a full-fledged Cyber Police Station to check growing cyber grimes.

Website hacking, defiling of records, credit card fraud, falsification of accounts and eve-teasing by sending SMS messages and E-mail are some of the major cyber-related complaints received at the Cyber Cell of Kerala Police functioning at the State Crime Records Bureau (SCRB) office here.

Superintendent of Police (Cyber Cell) G Lakshman said that hacking of website of tourism-related venture has been on the rise in the state. There has also been a case of hacking of web-site of Nilgiri Tahr Foundation, a forum of wildlife lovers set up to protect and preserve the endangered Nilgiri Tahr found in the Western Ghats.

Another important initiative of the Cyber Cell was to check the sale of stolen motor vehicles in the state, he said. It has been made mandatory to have a No Objection Certifcate from Cyber Cell for registering the sale of second hand vehicles.

The details of the vehicles would be fed to the computer and it would be immediately known if the particular vehicle was involved in any criminal activites or a stolen property. The Cyber Cell has a data bank of stolen vehicles in the country for the past 15 to 20 years.

The bank has particulars of nearly six lakh such vehicles, he said. "We have already detected 100 stolen vehicles which came for registration through RTO", he said. The Cyber Cell also planned to open Public Counters in first stage in Thiruvananthapuram for inviduals to get NOC for their vehicles, he said.

If it was found successful, it will be extended to other towns, he said. Application for the NOC could be made either through Regional Transport Authority or by individuals themselves. Once the governemnt sanctions enough strength and infrastructure for the Cyber Police Station, training of police personnel to be attached to the Cyber Station would start, Lakshman said.

"We have already identified the personnel from constable level to Inspectors' rank after conducting an examination in the force", he said.

At present, all cyber-related crimes are registered at respective police stations. The Centre For Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) would be imparting training to police personnel in computer-related applications and also in using the investigation tools, he said. C-DAC has planned the duration of the training to be four months and once the governemnt clears enough manpower, the process of establishing the Cyber Police Station could be speeded up, he said.

Date Posted: 5/26/2005