In every 10 minutes, one cybercrime took place in the National Capital Region and over 22,782 such complaints had been lodged in the first six months of 2017, says a cybersecurity expert in Noida, near New Delhi.

Rakshit Tandon, a cybersecurity expert and consultant, shared this information at a panel discussion, ‘Challenges in Cyberspace,’ at the Amity University’s Noida campus.

The event, a joint initiative of the Ministry of Telecom and Information Technology and Amity Business School, was organized in the run-up to the Global Conference on Cyberspace (GCCS) 2017.

“Most of the cybercrime offenders are youth and college students. These days, even a class 6 student knows how to hack a Wi-Fi password and every such offender claims to be an ethical hacker, whereas there is nothing called an ethical hacker, as per the laws of the country,” Tandon said.

He added that most of the offenders were not even aware of the cyber laws.

“In India, we need to empower the youth and apprise them of offense, defense and response. The technology needs to be updated regularly to ensure that the websites are not prone to hacking. When we talk about Digital India, it should actually be Safer Digital India,” Tandon said.

CBI Inspector Akanksha Gupta said the police of all the states should have technological expertise and the law enforcement agencies should have dedicated wings to tackle the “cyber warfare.”

Col. Pankaj Verma, a cyber security expert associated with the TCG Digital, said cyber security could never be foolproof, adding that even the networks of big organizations such as the LinkedIn had been hacked in the past.

“The security products used in India, right from the chips to hardware and software, are not indigenously manufactured. The entire ecosystem is not in our control. The very critical systems of our country ride on the same ecosystem,” he added.

Pawan Duggal, a lawyer specializing in the field of cyber laws and e-commerce, said anything digital or electronic was covered under the cyber laws.

The Global Conference on Cyberspace 2017 will be hosted for the first time in India in November to promote the Digital India mission of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It will be held in New Delhi.