The Hindu Business Line : ‘CSO Forum’ set up to tackle cyber crimes

Chennai, March 13 A forum of Chief Security Officers of IT companies in Chennai has just been formed. Members of the forum will exchange notes and ideas on various measures to be taken to tackle cyber crimes.

This was revealed by the Tamil Nadu Secretary (Information Technology), Dr C. Chandramouli, at ‘Nasscom Cyber Safe 2008’, a two-day seminar on cyber security organised here by the southern chapter of Nasscom.

Dr Chandramouli said the IT department did an exercise to find out how prepared IT companies were against any threats. “What will you do, if someone enters your office armed with a gun and threatens you? Or, whom will you call if there is a sudden fire break-out?” these were the kind of questions the department put to the companies.

“No one had a proper answer,” Dr Chandramouli said. He stressed it was necessary that regular drills be conducted in companies so that all employees know how to react in an emergency.

Vulnerable sector

Dr Chandramouli observed that the IT sector is more prone to threats because it has become a national symbol of development. Cyber crimes are also becoming easier — a person could walk in and out of a company with all the data in his pen drive.

The CSO Forum will seek to address such issues and perhaps evolve some guidelines on cyber safety. Incidentally, the Tamil Nadu Government itself will soon bring out a manual of good practices for IT companies, Dr Chandramouli said.

Speaking at the conference, Mr R. Dhamodaran, Country Head of the IBM India Software Group, said that there is a need for strong private-public partnership to enforce methods to prevent cyber crime, else it will become difficult to foster business on the Internet. “While we encourage more people to use the Internet for their business transactions, it becomes necessary to ensure that this channel of reaching out to the public is secure,” he said.

Low on priority

He said it was not just the prerogative of the information provider to ensure safe distribution of data, but also that of other stakeholders to responsibly deliver it to the end-user.

According to data from the Computer Security Institute, financial fraud in the US has overtaken virus attacks and amounts to losses of over $66 million for individuals and corporations. Mr Satish Das, Chief Security Officer, Cognizant Technology Solutions, urged the police to take cyber crime as seriously as any other crime. Email harassment for instance, is low priority among the police, which is understandable as the police is used to handling a more tangible form of crime, he said. “But we need legal help. IT companies can help the police locate the culprits and impart technical training to make them aware of cyber crime,” he said.