Pune: Minister of state for home Yogesh Kadam said on Thursday that the state govt is working on hiring professional ethical hackers, besides taking the help of private firms, to counter cyber criminals. He said that a team of 5,000 police personnel is being trained in the state to exclusively tackle cyber cases.Maharashtra is among the worst-hit states in terms of cyber crime cases. The state govt has set up a facility at Mahape in Navi Mumbai to deal with cyber crime cases. “We need to increase staffers to respond to these cases in a quick time and therefore the state govt is now training 5,000 police personnel who will be exclusively handling cyber crime cases only,” Kadam said during a media interaction organised by the Pune Union of Working Journalists.“Apart from the police teams, the govt is being assisted by private companies like L&T. We are also considering hiring the services of professional ethical hackers who can help us with technical responses. such as creating firewalls to thwart the attempts of cyber crooks,” Kadam added.Underlining the importance of awareness in society about the mode of crimes, the minister said that people need to be more alert. ‘Raising a complaint with the police at the earliest is the most important thing in cyber crime. If the complaints come to cyber helpline number 130 within five to six hours of the fraud, the expert team can freeze any account across the country and prevent the transfer of the money out of India. However, if the same complaint comes to the police after five to six days of the crime, that money would already have been transferred to 150 to 200 foreign bank accounts,” he added.Kadam described the trend of minors’ involvement in crime as “worrisome”. He said that the govt is taking steps to prevent minors from entering the world of crime. “There are provisions in Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, where a case can be registered against those who have influenced juvenile criminals to take the path of crime, and the govt has now started using those provisions to take action against such anti-social elements,” he added.
