New Delhi, 4th April 2022: Ashwini Vaishnaw, Union Minister of Railways; Communications; Electronics and Information Technology today inaugurated the “Second National Conference on Cyber Crime Investigation and Digital Forensics” at Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi organized by CBI on the occasion of “Cyber Jaagrukta (Awareness) Saptah between 4th – 7th April, 2022”. Vaishnaw also launched a new website of CBI (https://cbi.gov.in) during the conference.
The newly launched website is dynamic and responsive with a public interface tool having user-friendly content management and administration features. The website is Bi-lingual (English & Hindi) with role based access. The website will provide authentic information about CBI to all stakeholders.
He also presented Police Medals for Meritorious Service to 12 officers and Asadharan Aasuchana Kushalata Padak to two officers.
Addressing the conference, Ashwini Vaishnaw said that the subject being discussed during the Conference is of very high relevance to all of us, and added that the cyber forensics has a very important role. He also referred to the advantages and vulnerability of placing in public domain the vital personal/private information on a massive scale. Pointing out that the way our society, our organizations, our day to day working has got integrated and shifted to devices like smart phones, we have gained lot of productivity, efficiency, convenience, but simultaneously the possibility of somebody intruding in our day to day life has increased many fold. This can be some time benign but mostly malignant.
The Minister stressed that tackling fraudulent use of information in cyber space is a huge challenge and felt that it could be tackled on 05 fronts which include need for over handling the legal structure in a big way. This, he felt, should be handled in a way balancing the need for privacy and at the same time preventing fraudulent activities which take place in the garb of right to privacy and freedom of expression. The Minister called upon the university students, the young scientists, the young engineers to come up with the solutions like using blockchains, encryptions, extremely good firewalls, isolating infrastructure etc.
The Minister also referred to the impact of the threat of cyber attacks on today’s technology driven infrastructure like railways systems, power systems etc. Vaishnaw, further emphasized the need for a totally new legal structure which is dynamic, in tune with the times, addresses the aspirations of our generations as well as keeps people safe, keeps the social media accountable, keeps those people away who want to swindle away our hard earned saving. Vaishnaw called for the organizational measures at various levels, whether it is student managing own password or a small family, the wifi router in the family or a small business or a large corporation or a government department, all the organizations will have to think more about protecting the cyber space. The Minister also dwelled on need for capacity development and said that extremely persistent efforts will have to be taken for creating capacity in cyber investigation, cyber forensics, cyber law, cyber technology, cyber security.
He also spoke about the importance of mutual co-operation, saying that the cybercrime is borderless which can be perpetrated from those emails which used to come 10-12 years back and today’s world where day in day out spams come from the all parts of world. “So that kind of mutual co-operation will be very important between countries, between organizations, all branches which are affected by cyber-crime,” he added.
Director, CBI Subodh Kumar Jaiswal welcomed the Chief Guest and other dignitaries He said that the national conference is a very important initiative towards facing emerging challenges. Jaiswal also said that the today’s conference is the second one of its kind and is an effort in the direction of capacity building of the participants on the complexities of cyber crimes so they can use this knowledge at the workplace.
Jaiswal said that CBI has over a period of time gathered reasonable expertise in cyber crime investigations. CBI is the lead agency in the investigation of cyber crime, so far as any challenges that are faced by the Govt. of India organizations are concerned, Cyber crime division of CBI also functions as the point of contact for the group-8 24*7 network round the clock in point to point network with law enforcement agencies of more than hundred countries. It also coordinated on the behalf of police agencies of India with the request of preservation of digital data.
The Valedictory Session was addressed by Director, CBI.
The conference deliberated on several important topics with dignitaries and experts from India and abroad as speakers who addressed both in physical and virtual mode. The speakers during session on Advancements in Digital Forensics and Digital Evidence Gathering Techniques were Dr JM VYAS, Vice Chancellor, National Forensic Science University (NFSU); Madan Oberoi, Executive Director (Technology & Innovation), INTERPOL; Dr. Navin Choudhary, Dean of School of Cyber Security & Cyber Forensics, NFSU; B.S. Bindhumadhava, Scientist G & Senior Director at CDAC Bengaluru, Karnataka and Ms. N. S. Nappinai, Supreme Court Advocate and Cyber law expert.
The speakers during session on Strengthening International Cooperation for Combating Cyber Crimes were Benazir Ahmed BPM (Bar), Inspector General of Police (Bangladesh); Kawahara Jumpei, Director General, Cyber Affairs Bureau, National Police Agency, Japan; Justine Gough, Assistant Commissioner, Cyber Command Australian Federal Police; Mohamed Hameed, Commissioner of Police, Maldives Police Service; C.V. Anand, IPS, Commissioner of Police, Hyderabad City and Satya Yadav, Head (Trust & Safety), Facebook India.
The session on Leveraging Technology and Public Awareness for Real Time Prevention of Cyber Enabled Financial Crimes was addressed by Dinesh Kumar Khara, Chairman of the State Bank of India; Ajit Menon, Chief Information Security Officer, Tata Consultancy Services; Mary Jo Schrade, Regional Director, Mircrosoft; Dilip Asbe, MD & CEO, National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and D.C. Jain, Additional Director, CBI.
The speakers during session on Protecting Elders and Children from Cybercrimes and Reducing Vulnerabilities on Digital Platforms were Ms Catherine De Bolle, Executive Director, EUROPOL; Praveen Sinha, Special Director, CBI and Delegate representing Asia on the Executive Committee of INTERPOL; Mr. Anup B Kumar, Asia Head, Investigation and Analytics, Microsoft; Jose A. Perez, Section Chief, Criminal Investigative Division, FBI & Mr. Christophr T. Crocker, Assistant Section Chief, Federal Bureau of Investigation, USA and Prem Gautam, DIG, Special Unit, CBI.
Around 290 delegates including Head of Police Formations & Law Enforcement Agencies from across India, Digital Forensic Experts, Senior Representative of Social Media Intermediaries and Members of the Academia participated physically at Vigyan Bhawan while around 1000 participants including some speakers also joined virtually. The weblinks were shared with CAPFs, State/UT Police, CVOs etc. facilitating a large participation. The National Cyber Conference is expected to provide a common platform to all stakeholders for exchange of their experience on recent innovations, concerns and to ideate on formulation of robust response capacity on building the issue.
Rapid digitization across all spheres of our activity has resulted in rising spectre of cyber crimes. The inherent technology intensive nature of such crimes, coupled with its transnational scope, necessitates a dynamic and multipronged response in coordination with key stakeholders like social media intermediaries, technology platforms and digital forensics experts. The exponential increase in the number of internet users on social media platforms in India, and the rapidly evolving technologies have brought in unique challenges, including those related to cyber crimes, which are both transnational as well as insidious in nature. Sustained efforts are also required to remind the citizens about the cardinal principles of cyber hygiene which have become ever more important on account of changing scenarios in cyber space clubbed with technological advancements.
Police Medals for Meritorious Service were presented to S/Sh. Rajendra Ganpat Chavan, Sub Inspector, BS&FC, CBI, Mumbai; Nilambur Narayanan Srikrishan, Inspector, SU, CBI, Chennai; Adu Ram, Head Constable, SU, CBI, New Delhi; R. Ravi, DSP, SCB, CBI, Chennai; Onkar Nath Singh, Constable, ACB, CBI, Patna; Ch. V. Narendra Deve, DSP, ACB, CBI, Visakhapatnam, Ajay Kranti Sharma, DSP, SU, CBI, Delhi; Mayukh Maitra, DSP, SU, CBI, Kolkata; Jitendra Kumar, DSP, ACB, CBI, Jodhpur; Y. Ramakrishnan, Inspector, ACB, CBI, Chennai; Lakhan Singh, Constable, EO-IV, CBI, Kolkata; Bharat Bhushan Sharma, Constable, ACB, CBI, Jammu.
Asadharan Aasuchana Kushalata Padak were presented to S/Sh. Deptendu Bhattacharya, ASP, SU, CBI, New Delhi and Anil Kumar Upadhyay, Inspector, SU, CBI, New Delhi.