The hacked website of Cotton College

Oct. 8: The criminal investigation department (CID) is planning to seek Interpol’s assistance in tracking down the group of cyber criminals who hacked the Cotton College website and inundated it with pornographic material.

Inspector-general of police (CID) S.P. Kar today disclosed that preliminary findings by his department indicated the involvement of hackers from other countries. He said the CID would, however, have to ascertain the veracity of these findings before formally moving Interpol for help.

The Cotton College Union Society (CCUS) lodged an FIR with the city police and the CID after discovering that the website, www.cottoncollegeguwahati.com, had been hacked. A click on the site’s “Enter” icon now leads Net surfers to pornographic content.

“We have sought information that might be of help to us from major Internet service providers as well as popular websites that often face the problem of hacking,” Kar said.

Both students and teachers of the college, acknowledged as the best in the Northeast, expressed concern over the website being hacked. The CCUS said hackers had not only sabotaged the objective of the premier institute of learning to reach out to the global community and provide a platform for exchange of knowledge, but also posed a serious threat to its reputation.

The CID inspector-general said cyber crime was a vast and complex subject and Indian investigators were still on the learning curve. “The domain of investigation is not well-defined as it is a highly technical subject. There is no single authority that exercises control over the Internet, which makes it really difficult to investigate cases of cyber crime without the required expertise. Moreover, hackers are usually experts in computer technology, which makes it difficult to detect them.” The state police department has computerised all its sadar police stations with funds from Delhi and entrusted officers of the rank of deputy superintendents and above with the responsibility of investigating cyber crime.

The CID has a cyber cell manned by a 10-member team. Apart from the Cotton College case, the cell has so far dealt with three instances of theft of Internet hours and complaints about obscene e-mail.

CID officials drawn from all the district headquarters were given lessons on cyber-crime investigation at a workshop in the city in June. The programme, conducted by a four-member CBI team at the request of the police department, was the first of its kind in the state.

Apart from CID and Special Branch officials, 34 assistant superintendents and deputy superintendents from the 23 districts of the state attended the workshop, which Kar described as “very enlightening and useful”.