Govt plans to use AI tools for digital forensics: Report

The government is planning to use artificial intelligence-based tools for a digital forensics project currently under way at the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), said a report in The Economic Times.

The report said that the C-DAC is planning to use artificial intelligence to look out for threats before they breach systems and track hackers to stop repeated breaches. The digital forensics arm of the C-DAC will help small and medium firms roll out commercial solutions for cyber threats, it added.

Finance minister Arun Jaitley had, in last year’s budget speech, said that the C-DAC, in collaboration with Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), would look to develop tools to tackle cybersecurity issues. He had also said that CERTs for different sectors, especially the financial sector, were being contemplated.

After Jaitley's speech, Union minister for electronics and information technology Ravi Shankar Prasad had said that the C-DAC was working on digital forensics, a branch of forensic science that deals with recovering and analysing information from data storage devices including computers, phones and networks.  

The report said that the digital forensics project has a budget of Rs 3.95 crore and that, apart from the C-DAC, the Indian Institute of Technology, Patna will also be involved in its implementation.

The report cited a senior government official as saying that the project will help the C-DAC research on cybersecurity for two years before starting out training programmes for government officials in the field.

The Indian government has taken a number of initiatives in recent years to boost cybersecurity. 

Last month, the government said its botnet malware apps had reduced infections in the country by at least 51% after their launch on the web and the Google Play Store in February 2017.

The government had launched the Cyber Swachhta Kendra (Botnet Cleaning and Malware Analysis Centre) under CERT-In in February last year. The government had also launched apps such as AppSamvid, USB Pratirodh and M-Kavach on Google Play Store and on the web to help detect and remove botnet malware, in the same period.