Kolkata police to train young cops in ethical hacking to outsmart cyber crooks

Kolkata Police is set to provide training in cybercrime to tackle the menace in every police station in Kolkata. The city has witnessed a sharp rise in the number of cybercrimes in the recent past. Hence, officers at the police station levels, like sub-inspectors and even inspectors, will be appropriately trained and equipped to curb the menace.

KOLKATA: Recent years have seen a huge spike in Cybercrime cases in the city. In the latest NCRB report, the agency said that there was an 11 per cent increase in cybercrime cases in 2020 as compared to 2019. It is noted that in terms of technical expertise the cyber crooks are always ahead of the law-keepers.

According to Kolkata Police, the top brass has decided to select one sub-inspector from each police station and provide them training on ethical hacking and other technicalities of cybercrime. In this regard, the training will be given to sub-inspectors who are comparatively younger in age over senior police officials in the police station.

The sub-inspector will be trained and groomed as an ethical hacker. A Kolkata cop, on condition of anonymity, said, that the earlier the investigation starts in case of cybercrime, quicker is the completion of the investigation process. "Handling cybercrime is a specialized skill," he said. Last September, domain specialists from the USA and England conducted an online workshop for the city police on sexual offences against children. "These experts also gave us valuable tips on how to tackle cyber crimes," he added.

According to Kolkata Police statistics, in 2018, a total of 32 FIRs relating to cybercrime were registered within the city police area. In 2020, the number of FIRs increased to 172. However, Bengaluru with 8,892 FIRs and Hyderabad with 2,552 FIRs were much ahead of Kolkata on this count. At the same time, in the Kolkata police area, there are 498 cases of cybercrime, whose investigation is yet to be completed.