Hyderabad: Telangana Police With the support from Industry and Academia, Telangana Police here on Saturday evening launched the Law Enforcement CISO (Chief Information Security Officers) Council, a first-of-its-kind initiative in India.
State Director General of Police (DGP) Anjani Kumar and Telangana Principal Secretary )IT) Jayesh Ranjan unveiled it amidst the presence of Cyberabad Police Commissioner Stephen Raveendra, SCSC Secretary Ramesh Kaza and Industry stalwarts at a function held at Cyberabad Police Commissionerate here.
Addressing the gathering after the launch, Anjani Kumar said that those who handle the subject take it casually. It is not just the case of Police but in every other profession as well.
The definition of crime is changing fast. There is no jurisdiction in cybercrimes. This now poses a lot of challenges for police, he said.
Expressing his concern at the rate at which cybercrimes are on the rise, he said that earlier speaker pointed out, $8 trillion will be lost to cybercrimes by the end of 2023, which is almost a third of the USA’s GDP in 2022 and twice as much as India’s projected GDP in this year, he said.
He said, Telangana is called a bright star in the country. It is home to many firsts in the country. CISO Council is one such example.
Cyberabad Police created a history of sorts by getting Rs 2.2 crore returned to the cyber fraud victims, he said.
The police have successfully managed to pass through all hurdles and get the lost money back fast, the DGP said.
He appreciated the Cyberabad Police for this achievement. They must develop SOP(Standard Operating Protocols) to help others, replicate it and successfully navigate the journey.
The DGP also appreciated Stephen Raveendra for the remarkable work done and for setting up an example in managing to bring syphoned money back in a cyber fraud case.
He also mentioned that Jayesh Ranjan upgrades himself (in terms of updating developments in his domain of specialization) faster than Apple upgrades its different series of phones.
Telangana has managed to stand where it is because of collective efforts. There are many Industry professionals who possess domain knowledge more than police, he added
Speaking on the occasion, Jayesh Ranjan said India’s First Law Enforcement CISO Council is a beacon of Cyber Security in Telangana. The initiative is the best example of the PPP model that we often keep talking about.
Cyber Security breaches are multiplying and will grow by leaps and bounds when the next billion internet users start going digital. The enterprises are also going to be at risk, he said.
He gave an example of his meeting Ajay Banga formerly with Master Cards, who upon asked by him in a meeting in New York some time ago on a visit to the USA said, that the company was subjected to 10,000 cyber-attacks on a good day and the number would go to 30,000 on a bad day. Individuals or enterprises, no one is an exception to cyber threats and frauds, he added.
The good thing about the new initiative, Ranjan said was to share intelligence. If you become a victim of cyber fraud and suffer, you must see that the other 20 are saved from falling prey to such attacks. But in reality, that is not happening.
He asked the team of the CISO council to work with the IT Department of Telangana and a few centers of excellence in the state such as SOC—Security Operations Center; Cyber Security Center of Excellence, Data Security Council of India and the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT).
Ranjan also asked them to work with startups as they are known for innovative and agile thinking and tools development; and ethical hackers.
He also told them to take the help of the IT Department of Telangana to forge international associations.
In his opening remarks at the event, Stephen Raveendra, said with a 300% surge in cyber incidents over the past year, we need to defend our digital space, Government organizations, Critical Infrastructure, and Industry including vulnerable MSMEs which are repeatedly besieged by threats and are ill-equipped to handle compared to their larger multinational counterparts.
The recent targeted attacks on Government and Critical infrastructure institutions during the G20 event in Delhi highlight the imminent need to institutionalize the fight against cyber threats, he said.
Every Cyber Security breach has an element of Criminality in it and every Cyber attack has an element of cybercrime in it. Law Enforcement CISO Council is the way forward, said Stephen.
Ramesh Kaza, Secretary General of Society For Cyberabad Security Council(SCSC) said human-updated ransomware attacks are up more than 200%. There is a notable increase in the number of password-based attacks, the numbers skyrocketed in 2023 with a tenfold increase.
In the year 2023, approximately 1,56,000 daily BEC (Business Email Compromise) attempts were observed. Attacks targeting open-source software have grown on average 742%. Gartner Analysts predicted that over the next two years, 45% of global organizations will be impacted by a supply chain attack. 57% of IoT/OT devices are on legacy firmware which is exploitable, he added.
Abhishek Kumar, Director of Governance, Principal Group Manager, Microsoft said that they would bring the full force and were happy to contribute to enabling the collective experience of decades.
Ramesh Ganesh, Director of Technical of CoE said that the team would work on how to contain, reduce and mitigate Cyber Attacks.
A couple of CISO industry stalwarts Sindhu Sridhar, and Suvabratha Sinha also spoke on the occasion.
