New Delhi: The Union Government today, during the ongoing winter session of the Parliament, shared details about how it plans to deal with cybercrimes in a comprehensive and coordinated manner.

The Ministry of Home Affairs, in a reply to a question in Lok Sabha, stated that the Central Government has taken steps, including the following:

~ Seven Joint Cyber Coordination Teams (JCCTs) have been constituted for Mewat, Jamtara, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Chandigarh, Vishakhapatnam, and Guwahati under I4C covering the whole country based upon cyber crime hotspots/ areas having multi jurisdictional issues by on boarding States/UTs to enhance the coordination framework among the Law Enforcement Agencies of the States/UTs. Seven workshops were organized for JCCTs at Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Guwahati, Vishakhapatnam, Lucknow, Ranchi and Chandigarh in 2023.

~ The state of the art ‘National Cyber Forensic Laboratory (Investigation)’ has been established, as a part of the I4C, at New Delhi to provide early stage cyber forensic assistance to Investigating Officers (IOs) of State/UT Police. So far, National Cyber Forensics Laboratory (Investigation) have provided its services to

~ State LEAs in around 8,840 cyber forensics like mobile forensics, memory forensics, CDR Analysis, etc. to help them in investigation of cases pertaining to cyber crimes.

~ The ‘National           Cyber          Crime                 Reporting        Portal’ (https://cybercrime.gov.in) has been launched, as a part of the I4C, to enable public to report incidents pertaining to all types of cyber crimes, with special focus on cyber crimes against women and                     Cyber          crime                 incidents           reported    on                this         portal,   their conversion into FIRs and subsequent action thereon are handled by the  State/UT  Law  Enforcement  Agencies  concerned  as  per  the provisions of the law.

~ The ‘Citizen Financial Cyber Fraud Reporting and Management System’, under I4C, has been launched for immediate reporting of financial frauds and to stop siphoning off funds by the So far, financial amount of more than Rs. 930 Crore have been saved in more than 3.80 lakh complaints. A toll-free Helpline number ‘1930’ has been operationalized to get assistance in lodging online cyber complaints.

~ The Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) platform, namely ‘CyTrain’ portal has been developed under I4C, for capacity building of police officers/judicial officers through online course on critical aspects of cyber crime investigation, forensics, prosecution etc. along with certification. More than 72,800 Police Officers from States/UTs are registered and more than 50,000 Certificates issued through the portal.

~ Till date more than 45 lakhs SIM cards and 42,000 IMEIs as reported by Police authorities have been blocked by Government of India.

~I4C has imparted cyber hygiene training to 5,600 officials of various Ministries/ Departments of Government of

~ I4C has imparted cyber hygiene training to more than 17,000 NCC

~ The Ministry of Home Affairs has provided financial assistance to the tune of Rs. 24 crores under the ‘Cyber Crime Prevention against Women and Children (CCPWC)’ Scheme, to the States/UTs for their capacity building such as setting up of cyber forensic-cum-training laboratories, hiring of junior cyber consultants and training of LEAs’ personnel, public prosecutors and judicial officers. So far, cyber forensic-cum-training laboratories have been commissioned in 33 States/UTs. So far, more than 24,600 LEA personnel, judicial officers and prosecutors have been provided training on cyber crime awareness, investigation, forensics etc.

~ National Cyber Forensic Laboratory (Evidence) has been set up at Hyderabad. Establishment of this laboratory provides the necessary forensic support in cases of evidence related to cyber crime, preserving the evidence and its analysis in line with the provisions of IT Act and Evidence Act; and reduced turnaround time.

~ To spread awareness on cyber crime, the Central Government has taken steps which, inter-alia, include; dissemination of messages through SMS, I4C social media account i.e. X (formerly Twitter) (@Cyberdost), Facebook(CyberDostI4C), Instagram(cyberdostI4C), Telegram(cyberdosti4c), Radio campaign, engaged MyGov for publicity in multiple mediums, organizing Cyber Safety and Security Awareness weeks in association with States/UTs, publishing of Handbook for Adolescents/Students, etc. The States/UTs have also been requested to carry out publicity to create mass awareness.