Mumbai police gear up to tackle cyber crime

CM Devendra Fadnavis launches special investigating tool ‘COIN’ to assist cops in detecting crimes.

In another step to re-emphasise the state government’s serious concerns over cyber crime, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Monday launched the city police’s latest investigating tool — COIN — which will assist the police to detect cyber crimes.

Collaboration Online Investigation Network (COIN) is an interactive platform empowering the law-enforcement agencies in Mumbai and the country to tackle cyber crime and other cases involving digital evidence, officials said. Cyber offences have increased by the folds in Mumbai and Maharashtra over the past year. Cyber crime was the first priority in tackling crime, according to the first press meet taken by the CM Fadnavis early this year after he conducted a security review.

“We are in need to protect our digital sovereignty. There is a need to re-look the entire law enforcement and the justice delivery system. There may be firewalls and passwords but we still have Wikileaks,” Fadnavis told an audience gathered in a hall in Worli for a conference held on cyber crime control.

Fadnavis had earlier said that 1,000 police personnel would be specially trained to deal with cybercrimes and a post of an officer of the rank of Deputy Commissioner of Police would be set up to tackle such cases.

With his audience filled with various security officials, ranging from members of the Indian armed forces to those associated with risk management of leading banks and other private security agencies.

Fadnavis added that “The most vulnerable (to cyber crimes) are banks, as there are so many credit card frauds. We are trying to create a cashless society but we should not make this cash-less society.”

Commissioner of Mumbai police Rakesh Maria said that the police needs to build their “own ecosystem “ to counter cyber criminals.

“From nerdy teenagers who hack email addresses and passwords, we are now countering well-organized cyber crime groups. We are required to think and out-maneuver them now. There is a need to standardize the process of investigating crime as the approach is entirely different,” Maria said.

Officials said that COIN is a platform created by members of the Asian School of Cyber Laws and will be made available to law-enforcement officials across the globe.

“Cyber crime is borderless. Our biggest challenge is of jurisdiction that we have to tackle,” Fadnavis said.

Listing out a few pointers on how COIN will aid the police investigate cyber crimes, Maria said that a suspect tracker of cyber criminals made by a unique algorithm, will help trace and record such criminals and also case files stored and updated on COIN that officers could refer to.

“COIN will enable us to search for suspect email addresses, websites, IP addresses, people, organizations and even modus operandi,” Maria said.

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