Saturday, 05 Oct, 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).
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has given India's banking sector regulators further advice in Mumbai on how to combat cybercrime and improve the nation's digital literacy. According to data from the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), in just four months this year, people nationwide lost Rs 7,061.51 crore to online frauds, of which Rs 1,420.48 crore was lost to scamsters who persuaded people to invest in the stock markets.
"Cyber frauds should not become an impediment to the growth of India’s startups and fintech companies," PM Modi said at the third and final day of the Global Fintech Fest in Mumbai on Friday, August 30, 2024.
The Prime Minister mentioned the abolition of the angel tax, the allocation of Rs 1 trillion to support national research and innovation, and the implementation of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act as examples of how his administration was making all the required regulatory adjustments to support the fintech industry. The government intended to use the Angel Tax to stop money laundering, but in July, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaraman said in her Budget 2024–25 that the tax would no longer be imposed on any investors or asset classes in order to support the finance sector.
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
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.
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.
On Monday, March 4, 2024, Ashwini Vaishnaw, the Union Minister for Railways, Communications, Electronics, and Information Technology, 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.
Although citizens cannot access this portal, it serves as the backend repository for requests made by citizens on the Sanchar Saathi portal. The Sanchar Saathi portal has a feature called Chakshu, which translates as "an eye" in Hindi. This is the other portal. Users can report communications that they believe to be fraudulent that they receive over WhatsApp, SMS, or phone calls. The user who reported the issue will be asked to re-verify their number by the system upon receipt of this information, and if they are unable to do so, their number will be disconnected.
It has been observed that the cyber criminals have been operating in an improved and sophisticated manner. Recently, Puducherry Cyber Police busted a multi-crore online scam that duped a large number of unsuspecting investors across India and arrested seven persons in this connection. After 64 bank accounts linked to the fraudulent operations were located, it was discovered that Rs 56 crore worth of illegal funds had been exchanged during the previous nine months.
During the operation, numerous credit and debit cards, a high-end bike, expensive cars, and more than 50 PCs were also seized. It has also emerged that the scamsters used the money that was stolen to buy opulent homes in Bengaluru and resorts in Yercaud, Puducherry, and Kodaikanal.
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.
