Help build robust solutions to fight cybercrime at the CCTNS Hackathon and Cyber Challenge 2020

Cybercrime cases in India, registered under the IT Act, increased at a rate of 300 percent between 2011 and 2014. In 2015, there were 11,592 cases of cybercrime registered, while the number doubled in 2017 with 21,796 registered cases in India. These statistics point to a grim reality: Digital technologies and the Internet have spurred cybercrimes and made them more sophisticated than ever before.

This has made it imperative for law enforcement agencies to be agile, up-to-date and skilled in the use of new technology tools and adopt innovative methods to track, investigate and combat cybercrimes.

In order to address this urgent need, Cyber Peace Foundation and National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) have launched the CCTNS Hackathon and Cyber Challenge 2020 with the aim to deepen understanding and enhance skills of law enforcement personnel across all ranks and file, empowering them to adopt smart strategies for effectively addressing the evolving threats.

The challenge is open to all law enforcement personnel across all ranks and file, as well as cybersecurity experts (civilians) across India. Hurry up, and apply here. Applications close on February 25.

The CCTNS Hackathon and Cyber Challenge will take place under two sections – CCTNS Bug Hunting and the CCTNS Ideathon.

CCTNS Bug Hunting

The CCTNS Bug Hunting on March 8 and 9 is open for innovative minds, secured coders across all segments of civilians and police personnel at the NCRB. The objective is to find vulnerabilities and logical flaws in the CCTNS application. Participating teams will be evaluated based on their findings, which will be classified as high, medium or low on criticality.

Who can participate

The challenge is open to police personnel, cybersecurity enthusiasts or professionals, students from academic institutions and professionals from tech companies. It also welcomes participation from students and professionals with a knack for finding security vulnerabilities, thinking out-of-the-box to hack into systems etc.

So, if you are a security employee in any company or if you have proved yourself in the past by reporting such vulnerabilities to any organisations or you are a bug bounty hunter, don’t miss out on this challenge. Since the selection for participation in this challenge is based on previous work, aspiring participants must share their achievements, blog posts, hall of fame citations etc. while applying.

In the first round of the CCTNS Bug Hunting challenge, interested participants (non-police) will be asked to share their details and their rank holding profile e.g. ‘HackerOne’ profile, ‘Hackthebox’ profile or any other contribution towards information security management. It is also open to police personnel without any rank holding profile.

Out of all the applicants, 30 will be shortlisted by the Screening Committee and will be invited to New Delhi for the final round of the competition. The top three participants will be awarded as winners on March 13.

CCTNS Ideathon

This ideathon is a great opportunity for police personnel to share ideas, suggestions and good practices to make Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS) more robust and popular.

Who can participate

The ideathon is open only to police personnel from across all States/UTs & CPOs.

The CCTNS Hackathon and Cyber challenge 2020 will also host the e-RAKSHA Awards which will seek out potential minds in the LEA who have devised and implemented innovative practices and solutions for smart and successful cybercrime investigation.

Open to only police personnel, the participants may share investigative aids, tools, videos, applications, case studies and proof of concept developed by them to address and solve cybercrimes effectively.

Why should you participate?

The CCTNS Hackathon & Cyber Challenge offers a unique experience to the participants, who will get an opportunity to advance their skills, knowledge and build networks for further growth.

A total of nine awards are being given across all the three tracks and winners in each category will receive trophies, certificates and industry-sponsored kits. Moreover, the winners will also get an opportunity to network with senior police officers and cyber security experts.

While the government is putting in much effort to fortify India’s cyber operations amid growing warnings of malware attacks on personal and organisational devices, there is an urgent need for innovation to detect and avoid these crimes, along with safeguarding data.

Speaking at the launch of the CCTNS Hackathon and Cyberchallenge earlier this month, NCRB Director Ramphal Pawar said, "Cybercrimes do not have any boundaries, and technology is making them more sophisticated and prevalent. The law enforcement officials need to be totally updated to address these crimes efficiently which this hackathon and the capacity building workshops will help immensely."

Echoing Pawar’s sentiments, Captain Vineet, President, Cyber Peace Foundation shared that the CCTNS Hackathon and Cyber Challenge has been designed keeping the requirements and issues on ground in mind after discussions with the ground personnel. He added that Cyber Peace Foundation is also working towards organising Global Cyber Challenge 2020 in partnership with other countries.