A cyber café at Doranda, Ranchi, that was searched on Thursday. Picture by Hardeep Singh

Ranchi, May 17: Internet cafés in Ranchi lack safety mechanisms to thwart cyber crime and ATMs are an open invitation to criminals, an ongoing inspection drive by a team of Cyber Defence and Research Centre has revealed.

Officials of the cyber centre conducted raids at cafés and inspected ATMs in the state capital since last night, continuing the drive today in Doranda, Bundu and Tamar. They were expected to move to Jamshedpur this evening.

Vineet Kumar, who has been appointed by the state home department to head cyber security projects in Jharkhand, said the officials had visited over 50 cafés and ATMs so far, none of which had proper safety measures in place.

“For instance, none of the cafés maintains a mandatory register to record names of customers, phone numbers and other details. Anyone with a criminal bent can easily visit any café and send threat mails or hack into other people’s accounts,” Kumar said.

None of the cafés had installed valid software and firewalls on the computers either. “The cafés are being run on pirated software, which increases risks of hacking,” said Kumar.

Most of the ATMs, too, were vulnerable.

“Many didn’t have any security guard. There were no burglar alarms, while CCTVs are either not there or are defunct. All of these are open invitations to criminals,” Kumar added.

According to official figures, computer penetration in Jharkhand is still below 30 per cent of the population. However, the state has made headlines for cyber crimes. In January, two persons were arrested for sending e-mail threats to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and home minister P. Chidambaram from a cyber café in Hazaribagh.

Kumar, who is heading the ongoing inspection drive, said their initiative was two-pronged — to identify the range of violations and survey the nature of cyber cafés and ATMs.

“The state is in the process of preparing its own cyber rules in accordance with IT norms laid down by the Centre. A draft copy has already been prepared,” he told The Telegraph.

Referring to the stringent rules and regulations under the IT Act, Kumar said that if they were to be adopted in toto, 99 per cent of the cafés would have to be shut down in Jharkhand, leaving many unemployed.

“Therefore, we are conducting the survey-cum-inspection to see how we can prepare our own final draft for monitoring cyber crime in the state,” he added.

Another official, who was part of the eight-member raid team, said they had also seized several pornographic CDs and DVDs from some of the cafés. “At a café near Loreto Convent in Doranda, we also found many couples in compromising positions,” he added.

Kumar said the drive would continue for about a month across Jharkhand, after which they would submit a report to the police headquarters. “Depending upon their suggestions, we will draft the state cyber rules. The entire exercise will take around two months,” he explained.