A three-time increase in Cyber crimes in the past three years in the country : Parliamentary Committee Report

About 20 lakh individuals cheated of Rs 2,537 crore !

New Delhi – The report of the Parliamentary Committee says that the country has witnessed three-time increase in cyber crimes in the past three years. The Parliamentary Committee examining cyber crimes informed the Reserve Bank of India that in the year 2021 there were 5.5 lakh cases of cyber crimes which by the mid of 2023 reached 19.94 lakh. The increase in the amount in monetary cheating has increased from Rs 542.7 crore in 2021 to Rs 2,537.35 crore by the mid of 2023.

Daily at least one transaction among the 60,000 banking transactions occurs. While the success rate of the cyber crime cell is only 8% of the crimes that are reported. (This is a shameful for the Police of the Cyber Cell – Editor)

According to the recent information from the Home and Information Technology Ministry 81% of the cyber crimes are reported from 10 Districts. Still only 1.7% of these crimes are reported and cases registered.

The Parliamentary Committee has recommended to the Reserve Bank of India that the process of withdrawal and depositing cash in the account should be based on an OTP (One Time Password) system, such that the account holder becomes aware immediately of every transaction.

According to the Committee’s report the UPI transactions (Google Pay, BHIM, and  PayTM (Uniform Payment Interface ) are more secure compared to Bank ATM or Mobile Banking  System. The complaints about fraud are fewer.  In country, out of 38 crore transactions, 78% happen through the UPI transactions. In the past three years, one crime out of the 1.15 crore UPI transactions are reported, while in the Banking System there is 1 fraud reported for every 60,000 transactions.

According to the Finance Ministry the greatest fraud is done at the ATM. In 2020, there were more than 10.8 lakh cases of fraud through the ATM.  By 2022, it increased to 17.6 lakh cases. And the amount stuck in the transactions increased from Rs 1,119 crore in 2020 to Rs 2,113 crore in 2022.

There are only 1-2 Cyber Police Stations for the country’s 35 States and Union Territories. 872 individuals involved in the Cyber crimes were found to be accused in 2.67 lakh cases.

Editorial Viewpoint

This is the dangerous side of the advance in the Information and Technology fields. It is a shame that the administration that tom-toms about its modernisation and digitalisation has not been able to implement effective security measures to prevent these cyber crimes.