Vineet Kumar started young. At 16 he floated a company called National Anti-Hacking Group.

Cyber cowboy of Red land

    Vineet Kumar started young. At 16 he floated a company called National Anti-Hacking Group. At 22 he is chief officer in the special branch of the Jharkhand police
What is your role as a ‘government employee’? I was giving suggestions to the Jharkhand police on cyber security since 2008. But in 2011, my proposal to form the Cyber Defence Research Cell was approved by the state cabinet. It created as many as 12 posts headed by a chief technical officer (CTO). As CTO, I supervise the cyber security of government sites, conduct raids and check phishing and leakages. Cyber crimes can range from compromising websites, ATM clones, Facebook profile hacking to retrieval of soft information to help the police investigate cases. Our role in tracking the origin of terror threat mails has been important.
Are you satisfied with the work you started as a youngster? Yes, but a lot needs to be done. Though we have cyber security agencies at the national level, awareness is low and even big groups often fall prey to hackers. We cannot leave experts to solely handle this crisis. Everyone using internet and web space should be alert, aware and be ready to adopt security as it evolves.
You got a gold medal at the UN Youth Assembly in 2008. How did it feel?
Though I could not receive the medal in person because of financial constraints, I was proud of becoming the world’s youngest Microsoft-certified systems engineer when I was in Class IX. The record has now been broken by an 11-year-old girl from Pakistan.
What is your family
background? My father, V K Roy, is a GM with HEC Ltd. I was inspired by him to learn and research on the computer. He gifted me a second-hand computer on my seventh birthday and this changed my life. I used to surf the net for 20 hours at a stretch when the connection came through the STD line from Kolkata and I learnt ethical hacking.

E-DEFENDER OF JHARKHAND