KOCHI: Kerala Police has selected four students from Toc H Institute of Science and Technology (TIST) as interns for training at Cyber Cell wing in Alappuzha. This is the first step of the internship programme for students from selected engineering colleges, at cyber police stations and cyber cells to sensitise and train them in fighting cybercrimes.
The first line of defence against any cyber threat is increasing perception and awareness on cybercrime, according to P P Jayakumar, a cyber forensic expert at Alappuzha District Cyber Crime Enquiry Cell.“Kerala Police has been undertaking massive awareness campaign to counter cyber attacks by involving youngsters, especially students from IT and Computer Science. The department has started accepting students as interns at cyber cells for giving them training,” he said at a conference on ‘Information Security and Cyber Crime Awareness’ organised by TIST in association with Computer Society of India (CSI) on its Arakkunam campus on Wednesday.
According to him, the department is undertaking awareness campaigns at various levels in educational institutions to sensitise students. “Once the proposed Cyberdome project announced by the Home Department becomes operational, it will enable the department to create a talent pool of youngsters who will be equipped to deal with cyber crimes,” he said.
Cyberdome is a state-of-the-art centre to combat cyber crime and carry out advance research on such activities. It is being set up on a 2,000 sq ft area at Technopark in Thiruvananthapuram as a joint venture between the government and private players.
Nearly 80 per cent of cybercrimes reported in Kerala was defacement of websites, hacking of emails and personal pages on social networking sites. “It is the new generation of youngsters who resort to such cyber crimes and through the sensitisation programme, the department aims at bringing down the number of such cases,” he said.
The conference also deliberated on Cyber Crime and Information Technology Act 2008 and Citizen Centric Services through e-Governance and Information Technology.