Saturday, 05 Oct, 2024
The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) played a pivotal role as the nodal agency representing India in the Global Cybersecurity Index (GCI) 2024. Image Source: IANS
According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) Crime in India Report 2022, the total number of cases reported during the year was 65,893, showing an increase of 24.4 percent in registration over 2021 (52,974 cases).
India has accomplished a noteworthy milestone in its cybersecurity efforts by attaining top Tier, or Tier 1 status, in the International Telecommunication Union's (ITU) Global Cybersecurity Index (GCI) 2024. With a remarkable score of 98.49 out of 100, India joins the ranks of ‘role-modelling’ countries, demonstrating a strong commitment to cybersecurity practices across the globe.
The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) played a pivotal role as the nodal agency representing India in the Global Cybersecurity Index (GCI) 2024. Jyotiraditya M Scindia, Minister of Communications, hailed the accomplishment as a Proud Moment for Bharat. He said, “This stellar achievement reflects our unwavering commitment to cybersecurity and highlights the remarkable growth of India's telecom sector.”
The GCI 2024 assessed national efforts based on five pillars: legal, technical, organisational, capacity development, and cooperation. The comprehensive questionnaire includes 83 questions, covering 20 indicators, 64 sub-indicators, and 28 micro-indicators, ensuring a thorough evaluation of each country’s cybersecurity landscape.
The International Telecommunication Union launched the GCI in 2015 with the goal of assisting nations in identifying areas for development and motivating them to take action by increasing capacity and capabilities under each pillar. In response to shifting risks, goals, and resources, the GCI has undergone constant revisions across editions to offer a more pertinent overview of national cybersecurity initiatives.
“The Global Cybersecurity Index 2024 shows significant improvements by countries that are implementing essential legal measures, plans, capacity building initiatives, and cooperation frameworks especially in strengthening incident response capabilities," said Cosmas Luckyson Zavazava, Director of ITU's Telecommunication Development Bureau.
The Government of India has taken several efforts and actions to improve cyber resilience and create strong frameworks for cybersecurity standards and regulations pertaining to cybercrime, which have contributed to India's impressive cybersecurity performance. The nation's judicial systems are equipped to handle cybersecurity issues and stop cybercrime, safeguarding the nation's digital infrastructure. India's cybersecurity skills are further strengthened by Sectoral Computer incident Response Teams (CSIRTs), which offer sector-specific technical help and event reporting. But in spite of these efforts taken by the government of India, the instances of cybercrime have been increasing over the years.
Source: National Crime Records Bureau
The cases of cyber crime in the country are continuously rising as scamsters find new ways to dupe the people. According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) Crime in India Report 2022, the total number of cases reported during the year was 65,893, showing an increase of 24.4 percent in registration over 2021 (52,974 cases). Crime rate under this category increased from 3.9 in 2021 to 4.8 in 2022. During 2022, 64.8 percent of cyber-crime cases registered were for the motive of fraud (42,710 out of 65,893 cases) followed by Extortion with 5.5 percent (3,648 cases) and Sexual Exploitation with 5.2 percent (3,434 cases). This was the highest number of cases of cyber-crime reported in a year till date. The chargesheeting rate in the cyber-crime cases was just 29.6 percent.
The highest number of cyber-crime cases were reported from the state of Telangana. The southern state reported 15,297 cases of cyber-crimes in 2022 followed by Karnataka (12,556) and Uttar Pradesh (10,117). Karnataka had reported 8,136 cases of cyber-crime in 2021 while Uttar Pradesh had reported 8,829 cases.
Cyber fraud, commonly referred to as online fraud or internet fraud, is a crime in which a victim is defrauded of money through the internet. Fraudsters can target a person and get in touch with them via SMS, call, email, or other methods in order to obtain personal information. They can also send a malicious link to websites or apps in order to break into a computer, mobile device, or network and obtain sensitive data like bank account numbers, credit card information, social security numbers, and personal information.
The data from National Crime Records Bureau clearly shows that the cases of cybercrime in India are rising at an alarming rate. The cases of cybercrime nearly doubled from 27,248 in 2018 to 44,735 in 2019. The highest number of cybercrime cases were registered in the year 2022.
Ashwini Vaishnaw, the Union Minister for Railways, Communications, Electronics, and Information Technology, recently introduced two new portals from the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to check financial fraud and cybercrime. Real-time intelligence sharing between law enforcement agencies, banks, financial intermediaries like PhonePe, telecom service providers, social media firms like Telegram and WhatsApp, and document issuing institutions is made possible by the Digital Intelligence Platform (DIP), a backend module. A number that is used in fraud will be immediately shared with all parties involved and blocked on all of their platforms.
Apart from the rising instances of cybercrimes, cyber slavery is one of the new and emerging concerns. According to a 2023 study from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), cyber slavery in Southeast Asia may represent "one of the largest coordinated trafficking in persons operations in history." The sums that these con artists have extracted are incredible. Researchers at the University of Texas have released data indicating that, since January 2020, $75 billion in cryptocurrency has been transferred from fraud activities into exchange deposit accounts. In March, Interpol Secretary-General Jurgen Stock stated that $2 trillion to $3 trillion of yearly unlawful global money flows are attributed to cyber slavery in the region.
Though the government has been taking a number of steps to combat cyber crime in the country, the data clearly indicates that more needs to be done.
