Microsoft, UN team up against children cyber crime

NEW DELHI: Microsoft India, in collaboration with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes (UNODC), had brought its global experts to train Indian law enforcement agencies on technology to investigate online crimes committed against children, to curb the menace of computer facilitated crimes against children.

The training “Advanced Workshop on Cyber Crimes and Computer Facilitated Crimes Against Children,” was conducted over four days at the CBI Training Academy at Ghaziabad.

With the increasing usage of Internet the potential for its abuse has also increased. It is increasingly important for computer users, policy makers and others to understand the risks that children could encounter online and the challenges law enforcement authorities face in countries worldwide on this issue.

In India during the year 2004 close to 350 crimes were reported (NCRB Report 2004) under the Information Technology Act, 2002 and the Indian Penal Code,

During the course of their training the Microsoft experts showcased the use of investigative techniques and tools to counter online crimes against children. The course topics ranged from malicious software, phishing, botnet attacks, advanced windows/XP forensics, windows vista security enhancements, and log analysis to the specific methods used by predators to facilitate crimes against children, like the use of technology to look for victims through newsgroups, chat rooms, and email and global sharing of abusive images and videos of children through the Net.

Elaborating on the initiative and the need for creating a secure online environment, Ravi Venkatesan, chairman, Microsoft India, said, “Our collaboration with industry partners and governments worldwide is to implement and deploy effective programs to build technology capacities to enhance internet safety. This training program is a key initiative to empower and equip our law enforcers to effectively arrest this social malaise.”

Gary Lewis, representative UNODC, said, “A key mission for the United Nations across the world is to make the world a safer and better place for children. With cyber crimes, especially online crimes against children, on the increase, it is vitally important that we work in partnership with governments across the world to combat this menace.”

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