CRIME AND CRIME CONTROL

I attended a very important seminar on the above subject where several learned speakers, both national and international, opined about the challenges and measures being taken to curtail national and international crime to the extent possible. The Central Bureau Of Investigation. (CBI) official made the most exhaustive presentation indicating how a 24 by 7 network is in place in G7, countries to track crime, and how digital evidence is being preserved in 130 countries of the world, through an international police coordination unit.?

While he defined different types of transnational crimes, he emphasized 7 international conventions under which international crime is regulated. He also revealed that INTERPOL which started in 1923, investigates 17 types of crimes and has its headquarters in Lyon, France. It was interesting to note that the 90th General Interpol assembly meeting took place in India last year, 75 years after India joined Interpol in 1949. Few would know that there is a global operation center in CBI where 124 million police records are maintained with 19 databases indicating that the police are on red alert 24/7. He also explained the significance of the red, blue, green, yellow, orange, purple and black notices that are issued internationally, apart from the United Nations Security council Special Notice.

CBI also maintains a database of stolen works of art from India. On my specific query as to how many stolen artifacts have been recovered so far, he mentioned that 40 rare pieces have been returned to India and the CBI is actively engaging to recover the remaining hundreds of stolen articles and are confident of retrieving a majority of them.?

The regional representative of the United Nations mentioned the fact that in today’s world, leveraging technology is very important in international cooperation for crime control and rendering criminal justice. The police representative from France also underlined the importance of networking to unearth cross border crime. He specifically mentioned digital financial assets like cryptocurrencies, which are difficult to detect, seize or stop because of masterminds involved in their creation and surreptitious usage. Finally, he spoke about the use of Artificial intelligence models in Southeast Asia to detect movement of illegal drugs.?

Several other speakers from Homeland Security, Bangladesh Police , DRDO and Home Ministry, expounded on cyber crime. Succinctly, I will mention the salient points.?

Mr. Islam from Bangladesh police stressed that there are different types of cyber crimes like Malware, which lies dormant in the system and unless detected, can create havoc at the pleasure of the perpetrator. Encrypted Malware is even worse as it remains undetected by the network of national security systems also. Another evil is ransomware which is a $1 billion industry. Phishing is done by individuals using social intelligence and is causing nightmares. He also stated that cyber criminals are making the maximum use of Internet of Things and AI to hoodwink the unsuspecting public. According to him, the best preventive measures are to completely avoid unknown emails, messages and calls, have very strong access controls for all electronic devices, actively monitor your own systems of protection and keep a close eye on suspicious software. In conclusion, he said that cyber crime is evolving and the challenge is to stay one step ahead of the criminals.?

The MHA Ministry Of Home Affairs (mha), GOI representative made some very interesting points and shared the data that 7 million cyber attacks happen daily, though not all are successful. The National Crime Record Bureau has tracked an increase in cyber crime and the main categories are investment related scams, fake loan scams, job scams, illegal gaming apps, aadhar frauds, android frauds, hacking and ransomware. The 3 most common modes used for this purpose are internet, telecom equipment and mobile apps. The various platforms that are targeted are payment gateways and sites which have your KYC, or where data has been shared for taking loans or applying for jobs and misused by threats of extortion including sextortion.?

She further mentioned that cyber kidnapping and human trafficking are also gaining mileage and several suicides have been reported as a result of loan scams. According to her, while jurisdictional challenges exist, collaboration of all stakeholders is required because MHA removes several apps and sites on detection, but they resurface and hence intelligence gathering is very important.?

As regards international cyber crime, she stated that a coordination center has been created in 2018 for prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of such crimes. She lamented that since cyber crime is a state subject, states are not always forthcoming in coordination, because of gaps in capacity building. Hence, states must focus on developing forensic labs, cloud services, identification of hotspots and sharing of advisories for preventing such crimes. To the people at large, she advised to use the helpline 1930 so that the ministry can enable mobile blocking modules through the telecom route, where already 2 lakh sim cards have been blocked.?

A few private companies in this sector with relevant technology, also made presentations and mentioned the challenges of keeping anonymity, encryption codes and dealing with huge data volumes.?

Another company dealing with cyber security for 15 years spoke about network detection and response, and monitoring the network including cyber cable, sea cable and satellites. Network detection is very important for banks, telecom operators and many government agencies. Machine learning or AI to process data, identify the outliers, and forensics to gauge new age attacks, learn and prevent them in future, are crucial in today’s digital world.?

Pelorus Technologies specializes in investigation and intelligence and has published an interesting book called “PIVOTING IN THE SHADOWS - ART OF NAVIGATING FOOTPRINTS ON THE INTERNET”. It claims to neutralize the efforts of hackers by predictive policing, after AI powered threat detection systems and dark web monitoring is done. She also mentioned that counter terrorism is a big challenge and identifying potential threats, and tracking extremist data, is becoming more and more vital. Her advice to the public at large, was to change passwords and make it as complicated as possible. For the industry, additional layers of security are required in their systems. For schools, cyber IT must get included in their syllabi, especially with respect to digital payments and gaming which are commonly used by the students.?

In a vulnerable digital world, innocence does not pay anymore. Hence, protection is possible only through robust security mechanisms, cyber auditing and camouflaging all passwords, without slightest linkage with the common memory facilitators like names, dates of birth etc.?

I came home a much more enlightened and secure individual and hence sharing this vital information on Linkedin.?

JK Dadoo

IIM A, IAS (Retd.)