India's emerging IT hub wakes up to e-security

KOLKATA: E-security is the buzzword in Kolkata's emerging IT hub following incidents of cyber crimes.

Barely days after a young woman working at a call centre was arrested for splurging Rs.200,000 with credit cards of her company's US clients, an alarmed IT hub in the Salt Lake area here is going full throttle to ensure tight security control by also involving the police.

"It is high time we all came together to ensure an all-encompassing cyber security. We must follow best practices and certain standard certification and auditing by authorities like ISO or BS7799 (British Standard)," Oney Seal, the Miami-based CEO of Databazaar.com, said in a telephonic interview.

"Law enforcement agencies need to be trained in potential areas of security fraud so that when an incident occurs, the police should have some idea of the problem," said Seal, whose company, a wholesale distributor, exporter and e-tailer of computer and printer supplies, has its sensitive back-end office in the IT hub.

"We are holding a workshop for the police and others. We want to come up with a comprehensive physical and e-security system for the entire Salt Lake area and also the emerging Rajarhat township where other IT companies are located," said Databazaar.com managing director S.P. Mukherjee.

A group, Saltlec-Rajarhat Initiative, has been formed to deal with the issue.

"Credit card frauds are happening all over the US. But the minute it happens in India there is a hue and cry and the question of e-security arises. It can impact the outsourcing business too," said Seal.

"We must take a three-pronged approach comprising minimum adherence to basic standard of security by auditing and certification (ISO etc.), thorough training of law enforcing agencies and federal-level countrywide legislation to deal with such crimes stringently," he said.

"In the US, the FBI deals with such crimes. In India the chances of culprits going scot-free are high because no one in the country has any social security number. It would be difficult to track the person whose antecedents are not always known," he said.

Added Mukherjee: "Police would be given an orientation programme and made aware of the IT industry, how it works and the mindset of the young ambitious and cash-rich boys and girls working there. A foolproof and comprehensive security measure is our action plan."

North 24 Parganas police superintendent Praveen Kumar, under whose jurisdiction the IT zone of Kolkata falls, agreed. "These are not traditional crimes. So making our officers aware is a must," he said.

"The detection of such crimes involves the police department, credit card companies, phone service providers and others. So such workshops being planned at least make people aware," said Kumar.

At a recent seminar on 'Issues of Security for the IT sector in West Bengal', Kolkata Additional Commissioner of Police Shivaji Ghosh said extra caution was required because IT is a high brand-value and image-enhancing industry.

Kolkata's IT sector, spread over about 430 acres, is concentrated in what has been recently re-christened as Nabadiganta Industrial Township Authority, formerly known as Sector V of the Salt Lake area.

It is the 30,000 people working there, rather than the establishments, who are seen as most vulnerable, according to West Bengal officials.

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