MANILA, Philippines—Aiming to become more relevant in the age of Internet, the Philippine National Police has started a year-long training on cyber security program for policemen.
PNP Spokesman Chief Superintendent Agrimero Cruz said they hope the Cyber Security Awareness Seminars for policemen will help boost their capability in fighting cyber crimes like hacking, phishing, cyber terrorism, and other cyber threats.
Cruz also said the training will also strengthen the PNP’s capability to defend its website from hackers.
The seminars will be held by the PNP’s Information Technology Management Service.
“The training will aid our investigators in finding hackers and identify suspects in potential cyber crimes like identity theft,” Cruz said.
He added that the training will also upgrade the information technology system of the PNP through streamlining of its process. “We hope to eventually have paperless reports.”
The seminars are broken down into 12 modules to be held once every month for two days at the ITMS office inside Camp Crame.
For January, the module will be about Trojans, or small pieces of software that seems legitimate but gives hackers unauthorized access into the unsuspecting victim’s computer.
In February, the attendants will be tackling viruses and worms.
Social engineering and phishing, the illegal acquisition of credit card details and passwords, will be taken up in March and April, respectively.
Internet content filtering techniques and cyber warfare or cyber terrorism will be the topics for May and June.
In July, participants will learn how to secure their laptops and computers.
For August, the physical security for information technology equipment will be discussed.
There are also seminars for software piracy and warez, the copyrighted programs distributed for free, in September; preventing data loss in October; computer forensics and incident handling in November and cyber threats and countermeasures in December.
In August last year, the PNP’s website was shut down after its administrators noticed attacks from hackers. At that time, the PNP was being criticized for the botched Quirino Grandstand hostage rescue incident that led to the deaths of eight tourists from Hong Kong.
Article source: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/infotech/view/20110112-314095/Cops-undergo-training-vs-cyber-crimes
Category: Cyber Terrorism Watch