HYDERABAD: Cyber crime in India grew by 120 per cent in 2013 over the previous year and a Delhi High Court report had pegged cyber crime loss in India at $4 billion, IT and panchayat raj minister KT Rama Rao has said.
Speaking after inaugurating Ernst & Young LLP’s (EY) cyber forensics and e-discovery lab here on Monday, Rama Rao said such labs should work with regulatory authorities and the police to curb the growing menace of cyber crimes.
According to the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, cyber crime costs the global economy about $445 billion every year, with damage to business from theft of intellectual property exceeding $160 billion lost by individuals due to hacking.
Meanwhile, EY’s facility in the city currently counts 35 forensic technology specialists on roll and has announced plans to increase the headcount to 200 in the next five years. It already operates one such facility in Mumbai.
‘’The new advanced lab, set up with an investment of $5 million will undertake complex cyber forensic and compliance-related investigations for clients in the US, the UK and India across verticals including oil and gas, utilities, pharma and auto sectors,” Arpinder Singh, partner and national leader (fraud investigation and dispute services), EY, said.
Rapid digitisation, over-dependence on technology and increasing business complexities are redefining the fraud landscape, he said.
Interestingly, EY, in its global Forensic Data Analytics (FDA) survey 2014 said 60 per cent of Indian companies used FDA in their anti-fraud and anti-bribery programmes and a majority of them used a combination of in-house and outsourced resources.
However, while companies may be executing some forms of FDA, many are missing important opportunities to leverage more refined tools.
‘’With the demand for specialised forensic solutions expected to soar, we believe that our Hyderabad lab will be instrumental to assist organisations in their effort to detect and prevent frauds,” he said.