TIRUCHY: Calling for stronger academia-police collaboration to tackle the growing threat of cybercrime, Inspector General of Police, Central Zone, V Balakrishnan, proposed a partnership between TN police, NIT Tiruchirappalli and the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) while inaugurating the Cyber Security Centre and a Faculty Upgradation Programme at NIT-T on Monday.
Speaking to the TNIE, Balakrishnan said the proposed collaboration will focus on three areas - training investigators in latest digital forensic tools, organising hackathons to develop solutions for emerging challenges, and creating greater public awareness.
"NIT-T has developed several indigenous cyber security tools, but many of them are yet to reach the commercialisation stage. This can change when developers are exposed to real-world problems faced by investigating agencies," he said.
Addressing the gathering, IG said complaints about Rs 1,200 crore loss to cyber frauds were received in 2025, adding that the figure could be higher as many incidents go unreported. A R Vinukumar, Head of the Cyber Forensics Section at C-DAC, R. Jeyapaul, Dean (Faculty Welfare), NIT-T, spoke on the occasion.
The five-day Faculty Upgradation Programme, being held from August 3 to 7, is organised by the Departments of Instrumentation and Control Engineering and Computer Science and Engineering at NIT-T in association with C-DAC, Thiruvananthapuram, under the Information Security Education and Awareness (ISEA) Phase III project of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.