• Home

Hi-tech Lab to Help Fight Cyber Crimes

The centre, the first of its kind in the emirates, is being established following an agreement between Zayed University and First Information Security, a UAE-based information security and forensics company.

The government college and the company have agreed to set up the lab to tackle cyber crimes that pose huge threats to governments, business and citizens globally.

The new lab will liaise with laboratories worldwide and meet international standards, as per the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed on Monday at the Zayed University, Dubai.

The signing took place on the sidelines of a one-day seminar on ‘Information Security in a Connected World’.

The lab hopes to facilitate processes for law enforcement agencies in cracking down on cyber crime.

Faculty and experts from the university’s College of Information Technology will lend their expertise as part of a ‘think tank’ setting up the lab.

“This will open another venue for us to provide services to the community. Signing this MoU is a good achievement for us and it will give our staff, students and faculties an opportunity to participate (in the project). Zayed University students will be trained to work in the area,” Dr Sulaiman Al Jassim, Vice-President of the college, told Khaleej Times.

The details of when the lab would be set up and where it would be established are still being studied but officials said details would be disclosed soon.

Experts at the seminar also discussed the need to protect governments, citizens and businesses from modern threats that include hacking, viruses, fraud and data leakage.

During the Second International Anti-Cyber Crime Conference in Abu Dhabi last year, Minister of Interior Lieutenant General Shaikh Saif bin Zayed Al Nahyan, called for more efficient procedures to deal with cyber crime.

Last month, police nabbed a gang that allegedly used a social networking website to trap children and torture them. Last year, the website of a popular Arabic newspaper and an Arabic news channel were hacked on separate occasions.

preeti@khaleejtimes.com

• UAE