Yet another threatening email has surfaced. This time it has been sent to the Air India call centre at Gurgaon and it claims that there is a plan to attack airports in India on January 12 next year.

This is not the first incident of its kind. Similar threats were reported some weeks ago, before the Uttar Pradesh blasts took place. Also there was the incident where an innocent person was jailed for three months by the police in Maharashtra on the basis of the wrong information provided by an internet service provider.

Interestingly, all these developments put our law enforcement agencies into action. Yet, how prepared are the country’s security agencies to handle such emails?

What normally happens when such warnings are issued is that the agencies involved step up their vigilance levels. However, the question is this: is an increased security cover the answer at all time? Clearly, that is not the case. More attention has to be paid to tracking down these emails, and getting to their source. With cyber crimes growing by the day in the country, a certain level of awareness has been built up and even the law enforcement agencies have taken to investigating cases involving cyber incidents. But so far there has been no action plan to address the national security concerns involving cyberspace. The tendency, as a consequence, is to be reactive to such developments rather than proactive. Also, as incidents of this kind increase in number, it may be difficult for the authorities to address all of them by increasing physical security and guarding those installations that come under threat.

... contd.