Thanks to extensive use of technology in everyday life, there has been steep rise in the number of cyber-crime incident across the country.
Keeping the trend in mind, the University Grants Commission (UGC) in its latest circular has directed universities and colleges across the country to prepare a calendar of events and arrange regular competitions, hackathons, workshops on cyber security/ cyber-crimes in campuses.
The move is ostensibly aimed at honing skills among students to counter or learn methods to deal with the new age crimes.
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The UGC has also asked the universities and colleges to conduct these events at regular intervals by following the Covid-19 protocols and social distancing norms in their respective educational institutions.
The universities and colleges have been asked to share the action taken by them on the issue of cyber security on the University Activity Portal of the UGC.
This is not for the first time that the UGC has issued a circular to universities to strengthen cyber security.
In February 2021, the UGC had requested the Higher Education Institutions (HEIs)) to strengthen cyber security so as to tackle the unforeseen challenges of cyber-crimes. The Commission had also asked HEIs to develop an ecosystem for cyber security in their respective campuses.
“It is once again requested to give wide publicity amongst students, faculty and stakeholders about the initiatives of the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (l4C) of Ministry of Home Affairs MHA's twitter handle @CyberDost, the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal which provide updates and advisories at regular intervals for prevention of cyber-crimes,” UGC circular read.