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Cyber Security Research Centre organizing Workshop on “Demystifying Hacking”
Chandigarh, May 4:
As a pioneering event in Chandigarh a workshop on Demystifying Hacking was to be
organized today by Cyber Security Research Centre at Punjab Engineering College.
The workshop was inaugurated by Mr. Manjit Brar, Director, Department of IT, Chd
Administration. This cyber Security Research Centre has been established in Punjab
Engineering College in collaboration with Chandigarh Administration and NASSCOM.
As per the MOU signed by the three parties, the technical support is being provided
by NASSCOM and the funding to the project has been provided by Department of Information
Technology, Chandigarh Administration. The Centre was inaugurated on 19 th march,
07 and has been set up with the mission to encourage, promote, facilitate and execute
interdisciplinary research in areas related to cyber security. As a part of the
outreach activities the Research centre has taken the initiative to promote Cyber
security awareness through the Workshop. The workshop was attended by students and
faculty from various academic and corporate circles. Amongst the academic institutes
there was a huge crowd of PEC students, students and faculty of from Punjab University,
BBSBEC FATHEGARH SAHIB, NITTTR,Sector-26 Chd , Thapar Institute of Engg and Tech,Patiala,
Chitkara institute of Engg and Tech., etc.
The workshop was highly interactive, with demos of hacking on test machine setups
and some cases in real environments. The workshop also dealt with not only understanding
of the forensics tools, techniques, methodologies used by hackers but also provided
the necessary countermeasures and covered various aspects of social engineering.
The Cyber Security research Centre is a valuable resource for disseminating the
awareness in the area of cyber security which will be of great asset for the region
as well as the nation said Mr. Manjit Brar, during his inaugural address. The first
ever workshop in Chandigarh on Cyber Security Hacking was organized at PEC, with
the effort in the direction of promoting cyber security awareness among the professionals.
Mr. Kush Wadhwa, who is the invited speaker at the workshop has varied experience
in the field of information security and digital forensics. He has carried out Penetration
Tests, System and Server Audits, Intrusion Detection, and handled many forensics
cases.
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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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