India is working with 15 countries to cooperate and tackle the menace of cyber crimes

India is working with 15 countries for information exchange on cyber crimes and bilateral cooperation on tackling it, Lok Sabha was informed today. In response to a question, Minister of State for Home Affairs Hansraj Gangaram Ahir said, “India is working for bilateral cooperation with around 15 countries for exchange of information and data pertaining to cyber crimes and related cooperation in law enforcement.” There is a steady increase in the number of government websites which have been hacked into since 2014, the government data presented in the Lok Sabha shows. “As per the information provided by Ministry of Electronic and Information Technology, a total number of 155, 164, 199 and 39 websites of central ministries/departments and state governments were hacked (into) during the year 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017 (up to February) respectively,” the Minister said. He said the government has constituted an Expert Group to study the gaps and challenges in handling cyber crimes in the country and prepare a road-map for its effectively tackling and give recommendations on all its facets. “Based on the recommendations of the Expert group, the Cyber Crime Prevention against Women and Children (CCWPC) scheme has been approved by the government,” he said. The CCWPC aims at setting up an online cyber crime reporting platform, cyber forensic training-cum-laboratories in states/UTs, Research and development (R&D) facilities and capacity building in law enforcement agencies against cyber crime across the nation. The Minister said Indian cyber crime coordination centre (I4C) scheme has been placed before the competent authority for appraisal.