Colombia. The National Police and the Ministry of Information and Communications Technologies announced that they have defined a series of joint actions to combat cybercrime in Colombia.
One of the most important agreements is the strengthening and massification of mobile applications designed by the National Police to respond in a timely and effective manner to calls from citizens.
In addition, the use of Artificial Intelligence tools will be encouraged to enable more flexible, focused and differential service planning, within the framework of the New Police Service Model.
"Cybersecurity is everyone's responsibility, and it plays a fundamental role within the PotencIA Digital strategy, being transversal to our three pillars. To strengthen it, we need the work of all the actors involved, so this articulation that we are achieving with the Police is undoubtedly great news," said the ICT Minister, Mauricio Lizcano.
During the working table, a commitment was made to jointly develop the world's first protocol against ransomware, to fight against the criminal practice of hijacking data and then asking for a reward. Work will also be done on strengthening the 123 line and on the application, so that its use in the face of computer crimes is massive, developing a kind of panic button that allows cases to be reported through these channels.
During the meeting, a special police team was also defined to investigate mafia structures that are dedicated to the theft of fiber optics in some regions of the country, a crime that affects the connectivity of communities, since this technology is the most widely used means of transmission in the country.
"We value the Minister's commitment to the strategies we have been advancing in the fight against cybercrime, especially theft, fraud, impersonation, sexual crimes, cryptocurrencies and the so-called virtual drop by drop," said General William Salamanca, director of the National Police.
The working group discussed the articulation mechanisms that will make it possible to deal with crimes such as extortion, particularly from prisons, using advanced technology that already works in other countries. For the two institutions, it is essential to strengthen preventive work on social networks, seeking to mitigate the risk of affecting children and adolescents who, in a systematic way, are deceived by abusers of different kinds.
Finally, a series of special measures were taken to contain the so-called "virtual drop-by-drop", characterized by the development of applications to make express loans and, subsequently, collect the money violently and disproportionately through death threats and extortion.
So far in 2024, the Colombian National Police has blocked 13,330 pages associated with criminal activities and brought 113 people to justice for cybercrimes. In addition, the agency reported that it has attended to some 3,147 incidents reported to the CAI Virtual.
