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India’s first regional cyber security and research centre inaugurated in Chandigarh

NASSCOM, the premier trade body and “voice” of the IT software and services industry in association with Chandigarh Administration today inaugurated the state-of-the-art Regional Cyber Security and Research Centre (RCSRC) at Chandigarh

28 Mar 2007 , Chandigarh : NASSCOM, the premier trade body and “voice” of the IT software and services industry in association with Chandigarh Administration today inaugurated the state-of-the-art Regional Cyber Security and Research Centre (RCSRC) at Chandigarh. The lab was inaugurated by General S.F. Rodrigues, Administrator of Chandigarh and Governor of Punjab and Mr. Kiran Karnik, President, NASSCOM. NASSCOM will serve as a technical consultant for this initiative while the funding will be jointly provided by Department of Information Technology and Chandigarh Administration through Society for Promotion of Information Technology (SPIC), Chandigarh.

RCSRC is the first cyber security research centre in the country that will engage a multidisciplinary team of researchers and faculty to conduct specialist research in the areas of information and cyber security and performance optimization in Networking in a cost effective manner. The team will conduct studies and organise discussion platforms to educate and enable the students to prevent and handle the new age transgressions. The research work undertaken and data collected here will also serve as primary source of information for the entire cyber security focused research community.

Speaking at the launch, Mr. Kiran Karnik, President, NASSCOM, said, “Information security has been a key focus area for the Indian IT industry. NASSCOM in association with various stakeholders like the union government, state administrations, academia, security professionals and the law enforcement has been taking steps that will ensure a strong security environment for Indian IT. We are very pleased to be associated with the inauguration of the Regional Cyber Security and Research Centre, and are hopeful that this will further raise the bar for India being at the forefront in identifying possible concern areas and spearheading new methods to curtail any security loopholes.”

“Drawing on the strengths from Computer Science, Engineering & IT, the Center will serve as a valuable regional and national asset for the development of advanced security solutions, critical infrastructure protection, emergency readiness and response technology consolidating India’s position with respect to information security”, he added.

Elaborating on the need for RCSRC, General S.F. Rodrigues, Administrator, Chandigarh and Governor of Punjab, said, “Punjab with its encouraging policies is fast emerging as the most favored business and investment destination for IT and BPO companies. On this backdrop, it has become imperative for the Chandigarh administration to take the lead in research to create a technology rich environment conducive for constructive discussions and innovative ideas for further strengthening the security environment in the country”.

The initiative is backed by the Board of Mentors that include prominent names from the IT industry, academia, defence services and Chandigarh administration such as Dr. Sundeep Oberoi, Principal Consultant, Information Security, TCS; Mr. Arun Seth, Chairman, British Telecom India; Dr. Bhaskaran Raman, Assistant Professor, IIT Kanpur; Professor Rudra Pratap, Associate Professor, Indian Institute of Sciences-Bangalore; Mr. Nandkumar Saravade, Director Cyber Security and Compliance, NASSCOM; Dr. Prem Chand, Executive Director, Tech Mahindra; and Major General D.V. Kalra, Chief Signal Officer, HQ, Western Command, Chandimandir.

About Regional Cyber Security and Research Centre (Rcsrc) at Chandigarh
RCSRC is a security research centre setup at the Punjab Engineering College. The centre’s mission will be to encourage, promote, facilitate, and execute interdisciplinary research in areas related to the nexus of the society and the digital world.

The Centre will serve as a platform to:

Aid and advise organizations in cyber security policy enforcements, conduct of security audits and incident handling
Provide consultancy to various IT organizations and police departments on the secure design networks including deployment of security administration software like intrusion detection, management software for vulnerability checking, protection against port scanners, password crackers etc
Educate and train manpower such as police, network users, IT professionals, and network security specialists in the cyber security policies and related skills so it is integrated as a part of their jobs.
Facilitate research work for undergraduate and postgraduate students and researchers in the concerned areas
Disseminate research results through journal and conference publications, technical reports, and public domain software.
Create an online knowledge repository in the form of WEB/FTP server consisting of information in the above mentioned areas.
Undertake projects with Government of India, NASSCOM, IT Industry in collaboration with academia.
Conduct interdisciplinary training programs for state departments, IT industry and academia.

RCSRC is a security research centre the primary focus of which is to conduct high quality research in the general areas of security, and performance optimization in Networking, at affordable costs. The Centre will be a platform to provide defense against threats such as information warfare. The Cyber Security Research Centre will carry out studies and hosts seminars that move society towards rational and informed discussion of these critical changes. Center’s mission is to encourage, promote, facilitate, and execute interdisciplinary research in areas related to the nexus of society and the Internet. The research work to be undertaken in the Centre and data collected here shall be of great benefit to the entire Research community who shall be perusing the similar area.

The technical consultancy will be provided by NASSCOM and the funding to the project will be by Department of Information Technology, Chandigarh Administration, which will be done through Society for Promotion of Information Technology (SPIC), Chandigarh.

About NASSCOM’s Ongoing Focus on Cyber Security Initiatives
NASSCOM has been working closely with both the IT and ITES-BPO industry to create an Information Security culture, commensurate with world standards. One of the important aspects of NASSCOM's information security strategy is to strengthen the capacity of the Indian criminal justice system, including the police, prosecutors and judicial officers. The objective is to set up a robust framework to effectively investigate and prosecute cyber crime cases.

As part of the Trusted Sourcing Initiative, NASSCOM has been working very closely with Indian law enforcement organizations to strengthen the capacity of the Indian criminal justice system, including the police, prosecutors and judicial officers. NASSCOM has spearheaded the following initiatives:

Set-up cyber training labs in Mumbai and Thane for training police officers in cyber crime investigation. The Mumbai lab has provided training to 1039 police officers from March 2004 to February 2007. On the other hand, the Thane lab has trained 755 investigators from August 2005 to February 2007. The newly opened labs in Bangalore and Pune have trained 31 and 96 policemen respectively.
In addition, approximately 574 police officers have also been trained through programs/ workshops conducted at Pune, Bangalore, Nasik, Jammu, Gurgaon, West Bengal, Aurangabad, Nagpur, Goa, Bhopal, Indore, Jaipur and Gujarat
Helped Mumbai Police launch a toll free infoline with 24x7 call center
Overall 2519 police officers and other personnel have been trained so far.

NASSCOM is also generating awareness among consumers on cyber crimes through Cyber Safety Weeks. Cyber Safety Week is an annual event in Mumbai since 2003 and was also conducted in Hyderabad in 2006. It will be extended to more states in 2007.

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