Centre seeks to up the ante against cybercrimes; key steps include creating dedicated IT cadre, bringing in domain experts

New Delhi: Around 9,800 websites and 46,000 Twitter accounts having terror and provocative contents have been blocked by the law enforcement agencies amid a massive crackdown against cybercriminals. A large chunk of the crime syndicate on the agencies’ hit list for the next phase is suspected to be using the dark web in online trading of drugs, arms, radicalisation, recruitment and inter-terrorist group communication. This all-out war has been launched to deal with the multi-faceted challenges in the virtual world in the backdrop of data theft, the security breach in social media platforms, circulation of fake news, the role of messenger services on mob lynching and frequent use of social media by terrorist groups in the Kashmir Valley.[caption id=“attachment_4490203” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File picture of Cybersecurity. Thinkstock[/caption] The government documents reviewed by Firstpost suggests that the war is not yet over. The security agencies have requested the intervention of Prime Minister Narendra Modi for enhancement of international cooperation through the formation of an international convention on monitoring and regulating of cyberspace, bilateral treaties and MoUs with industries of global repute. It is leant that matter has been raised to the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS) headed by National Security Advisor Ajit Doval. The NSCS advises the prime minister on important strategic and security issues. Besides, the Ministry of Home Affairs has already taken up the issue of localisation of servers of major service providers and sovereign cloud deployment as done by Microsoft for China and Germany. Sources said, if required, amendments in the IT Act will be made to deal with subversive activities in cyberspace and efforts are afoot to improve the legal and regulatory framework. “There are suggestions that we must use economic and market strength to force foreign-based communication application companies to comply with Indian laws and requirements of Indian law enforcement agencies. There is another proposal of mandatory breach disclosure, which is being discussed. Since we do not have a mandatory breach disclosure law, it is being deliberated to have a disclosure policy for all entities to have a clear understanding of the threat. We are carrying out the operation to detect and neutralise threats, websites with terror contents and inflammatory social media contents despite minimum cooperation. Servers of popular sites are located outside India with encrypted data and unshared keys having no backdoor. The Computer Emergency Response Team-India, is being roped in to take these measures forward," sources said further adding that absence of uniform international law enforcement procedures, prevalence of different cyber laws in different countries, tedious process of mutual legal assistance treaties and insufficient bilateral arrangements with other countries are some other major roadblocks for security agencies. It is interesting to note that India has 120 crore telephone subscribers, 42 crore Internet subscribers, 28 crore mobile internet users and is ranked at the 23rd position out of 165 nations in Global Cybersecurity Index 2017 of the United Nations. Despite the huge number of users, the foreign services providers are denying encryption keys and moreover, there is a substantial delay in response to lawful requirements by the Indian security agencies. The government is also mulling to constitute a centre of excellence for cyber communication monitoring and analysis for social media monitoring, sharing of tools developed by Central agencies with the state police and formation of dedicated IT cadre, knowledge partners and appointment of domain experts for cyberwar rooms. Sources said Delhi Police is learnt to have appointed a former professor of Delhi Technical University as the chief technical officer and other states would be encouraged to adopt this practice. According to the documents, the government is also working on a proposal to bring clarity about the legal position on cryptocurrency to deal with criminal elements exploiting cyberspace for ulterior motives and committing crimes. The move was initiated immediately after a kidnapping in Punjab, in which ransom was demanded in Bitcoin. The government wants to resolve jurisdictional issues and formulate regulations. “Since cryptocurrency is neither legal nor illegal at present in several territories, the security agencies have decided to use a tool developed by INTERPOL to track its transactions in India, which is a grave national security threat. This tool has been offered to law enforcement agencies free of charge,” sources further said.