Karnataka has set up the country’s first Cyber Command Centre to combat the rising number of cybercrimes in the state.

The centre has been established under the Cyber Crimes Prevention Unit (CPCU) following a proposal from senior police officers to prevent and control cybercrimes, who drew attention to the increasing dependency on technology in all functions and walks of life leading to the spike in cybercrimes.

In the last four years, as many as 52,000 cyber crimes have been reported in Karnataka, which ranks highest among the south states. Cybercrimes accounted for 20 per cent of all the reported crimes in the state.

Karnataka, the first state to set up a cybercrime police station in 2001, under the Criminal Investigation Division (CID), has now established the first Cyber Command – a unified cyber security centre.

The new centre, which will be headquartered at the CID building on Palace Road, will combat financial frauds through digital platforms, betting, online games, online gambling, lottery scams, cryptocurrency scams, cyber terrorism, online crimes like stalking, digital arrest, sextortion, deepfakes, data breach, identity theft and ransomware among others.

The existing 43 CEN (Cyber, Economic, and narcotics) police stations will be redesignated as cybercrime police stations and brought under the CCPU, along with cybercrime police stations under the CID and the Bengaluru City Police Commissionerate, which makes it 45.

Senior IPS officer and DGP Internal Security Pronab Mohanty has been redesignated as DG Cyber Command, which will have a total of 193 sanctioned posts under various designations and units, and incur an annual expenditure of Rs 12.93 crore for salaries and an additional Rs 62.25 lakh for equipment and operational expenses.

The duties of the Cyber Command Unit will be aligned with the powers under Section 43 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 and other relevant provisions, including prevention, detection, and prosecution of cybercrimes. The functioning and implementation of the unit will be under the purview of the Empowered Committee and the Special Empowered Committee.