New Delhi, Sep 10 (UNI) Stating that development of any country is impossible without cyber security, Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Tuesday said that the government has actively pursued goal of a cyber-secured Bharat and implemented an effective cyber security strategy to guard the citizens from the reach of cyber criminals.
Addressing the first Foundation Day programme of the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) at Vigyan Bhavan here, Shah said that technology proves to be a blessing for human life and today it is being used extensively in all new initiatives. The increasing use of technology is also creating many threats and that is why cyber security is no longer limited to the digital world but has also become an important aspect of the national security.
The Home Minister said that platforms like I4C can make a huge contribution in dealing with such threats and also called upon I4C to continue awareness, coordination and joint efforts with the concerned stakeholders.
He said that in a vast country like India, having a separate Cyber Suspect Registry for each state would not serve any purpose because states have their own boundaries but cyber criminals have no boundaries. It was the need of the hour to create a Suspect Registry at the national level and connect states with it to create a common platform to fight cyber crime.
Shah also dedicated the Cyber Fraud Mitigation Centre (CFMC) to the nation, launched the Samanvay platform (Joint Cyber Crime Investigation Facility System), inaugurated the ‘Cyber Commandos’ program and Suspect Registry. He also unveiled the new logo, vision and mission of I4C.
The Minister said that CFMC has also been inaugurated with the idea of bringing banks, financial institutions, telecom companies, Internet Service Providers and police on a single platform and this will become a major platform for prevention of cyber crime in the coming days.
He said that ‘duty to share’ instead of ‘need to know’ is the need of the hour and for this nothing can be more effective than the Samanvay platform.
Shah said that the number of internet users in the country was 25 crores on 31 March 2014, which is 95 crores on 31 March 2024. Due to the increase in downloading speed and reduction in cost, data consumption has also increased a lot. Earlier the average usage was 0.26 GB which has increased by almost 78 times to 20.27 GB today. Due to the Digital India initiative, many facilities have become online in the country.
The Home Minister said that I4C has done a great job in its journey of nine years and in the short span of one year after becoming an official part of the Ministry of Home Affairs. The biggest achievement of I4C is the 1930 national helpline number and it is the responsibility of all state governments and stakeholders to popularise it.
So far I4C has issued more than 600 advisories, blocked a wide range of websites, social media pages, mobile apps and accounts operated by cyber criminals, he added.
Shah said that keeping in mind the complaints of cyber crime, seven joint cyber coordination teams have been formed at Mewat, Jamtara, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Chandigarh, Visakhapatnam and Guwahati and they have yielded very good results.
Present on the occasion were Minister of State for Home Bandi Sanjay Kumar, Home Secretary Govind Mohan, Director IB, Special Secretary (Internal Security), Chief Secretaries and Director Generals of Police and senior police officers of States and Union Territories and others.
