Taking an initiative to provide a platform to the ethical hackers of the country for submitting the vulnerabilities which they come across about the affected institutions or firms, the Cyber Defense Research Centre (CDRC) of Jharkhand Police has launched a ‘Responsible Disclosure Programme’ which after evaluating the information will pass it onto concerned institutions.
This will help ethical hackers to evade victimization against them by the concerned firm or institutions on the ground of suspect.
“Apart from working on cyber crime area, CDRC has introduced an innovative ‘Responsible Disclosure Program’ inviting the general public to report the incidents of cyber security breach. The Ethical Hacking community has been invited to report the vulnerabilities,” said Chief Technology Officer of Jharkhand Police Vineet Kumar.
CDRC will contact the organization on behalf of the ethical hacker and help them to correct the reported security flaw.
This programme intends to encourage all those ethical hackers who identify security issues on the websites or in the computer systems of Indian ministries, public or private organizations, Government departments or banks to fill out a submission form with the required details.
“Generally, the ethical hackers avoid reporting such issues as there are instances of offensive action taken against them instead of gratitude from the organization. This is an initiative to provide support system by the law Enforcement Agencies to these ethical hackers and to remove the mistrust between the two,” said Vineet Kumar.
According to Kumar, they believed that this will help the ethical community significantly in contributing to proactive cyber crime control who have supported the initiative whole-heartedly.
There are no monetary rewards or certificates and anonymous submissions are not encouraged as well, being allowed only under certain circumstances.
“Since it is new to India, we have opened it and will wait for the response first and then will give a shape to it. For now, it is in its primary stage and will be developed as per the requirements,” said IG (Operations) SN Pradahan.
An online complaint system has also been introduced. CDRC will also be handling the Cyber patrolling obligations. Vulnerability findings could be registered on line on this site: http://cdrc.jhpolice.gov.in/responsible-disclosure-submission/.
CDRC launched by Jharkhand Police is first of its kind in India and 9th in the world.