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India 11-Jan, 2025

Parliamentary panel meets officials from MHA, suggests steps to check cyber crime

By: Team India Tracker

Parliamentary panel meets officials from MHA, suggests steps to check cyber crime

The data from National Crime Records Bureau clearly shows that the cases of cybercrime in India are rising at an alarming rate. 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).

During their meeting with home ministry representatives, members of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs received a thorough presentation on the topic of "Cybercrime – Ramifications, Protection and Prevention." The frequency of reported cyber incidents has sharply increased as a result of cybersecurity vulnerabilities that have emerged as more people and companies adopt digital technologies. Over 80,000 incidents and thousands of crores in cyber fraud have been reported in the past year, according to sources. 

Last year, the Standing Committee on Communications and Information Technology (2023-24) observed that the volume and value of money lost in cyber frauds are very high in comparison to recovery rate which has been abysmally low. As per Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (14C), cyber frauds that were reported increased by 128 percent  in 2022 in comparison to 2021. 

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.

Source: National Crime Records Bureau

Recently, the Hyderabad Police busted a multi-state cyber crime racket involving 23 fraudsters for their involvement in 30 cyber crime cases registered in Telangana. Police detained 60-year-old Kamlesh Kumari of Mainpuri, Uttar Pradesh, during the probe. Kumari was charged with enabling the transfer of the stolen money. Kumari had previously run in and lost general elections.

"Kamlesh Kumari, facing financial strain due to loans, allowed a co-accused to use her NGO's account to divert victims' money, in exchange for a commission," said D Kavitha, DCP (cyber crime). After receiving Rs 1.9 crore in her account, Kumari tried to take out the money by transferring it to other accounts. Kumari was promised a sum of Rs 35 lakh for her involvement. Her account was connected to two other cases in Gujarat and Delhi, based on investigations.

In another instance, Bangalore residents Sameer Hundekar and Deepak Sampath were taken into custody for engaging in investment fraud. The two allegedly ran YouTube advertisements and a WhatsApp group purporting to provide stock trading advice. Believing it to be a genuine stock plan, a victim invested Rs 2.9 crore, but his funds were misappropriated into other accounts. The two were discovered to be running mule accounts for Ritesh Soni in Dubai, who paid them 5% for their services. 23 people from Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, and Karnataka have been taken into custody by the police in relation to these and other cybercrime cases.

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.

The crime of defrauding a victim of money via the internet is known as cyber fraud, online fraud, or internet fraud. To gather personal information, fraudsters can target an individual and contact them by phone, email, SMS, or other means. In order to get access to a computer, mobile device, or network and steal private information, like social security numbers, bank account details, and credit card numbers, they can also transmit malicious links to websites or applications.

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.

When it comes to the motivation behind cybercrime, deception was the most prevalent reason, accounting for 32,230 of the 52,974 cybercrime incidents that were reported. In terms of motives, extortion (2,883) and sexual exploitation (4,555) came after fraud. In 2021, there were 73,884 cases that required inquiry in total. In 21,229 cybercrime instances, the accused was released on the basis of either insufficient evidence or being untraceable and lacking in hints. Although the figures show how serious the increase in cybercrime is, it is concerning since they are based only on occurrences that have been recorded. Therefore, the true number of cybercrime occurrences would be far larger if we included the cases that go unreported.

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. 

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.

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