Madhya Pradesh: State witnesses manifold rise in financial frauds in cyberspace

Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): Cyber fraud involving scam of Rs 2 lakh and more have exponentially risen across the state, and this could be gauged from the fact that the number of crime reported so far this year has surpassed the 2021 figure, as revealed by the data shared by State cyber crime headquarters, Bhopal.

As per the data, the number of cybercrimes in which people lost more than Rs 2 lakh stood at 165 in the 2021, while 258 such cases have been reported in the state cyber crime headquarters till the first week of December 2022.

Furthermore, while talking to the State cyber crime headquarters, station house officer (SHO) of Bhopal, Chandrakant Patidar, Free Press learnt that majority of such cases include phishing scams and acts of directly siphoning off money from people’s accounts through fraudulent applications and links containing malware. Meanwhile, other cases registered with the cyber cell include online defamation, creating fake social media accounts and cyber-bullying.

The cases of cyber frauds spiralled across the state after the two ferocious waves of Covid-19. A number of people have fallen victim to fraudulent job offers, Know Your customer (KYC) updation, insurance renewal and frauds committed on similar pretexts.

Taking on the matter,  Patidar said that the police were taking all measures to pull the plug on cyber crime by organising awareness programmes and apprising people of online OTP-related frauds.

“However, people, specially those not digitally literate, need to be more careful while clicking any suspicious links and sharing One time password (OTP) with anyone,” Patidar added. SHO Patidar also suggested avoiding open Wi-Fi networks to make online payments.