Mumbai ranks second in cyber crime with 2,527 cases after IT hub Bengaluru with 10,555 cases. The city saw the highest cyber crime of debit/credit card phishing and fraud with a total of 978 cases, of which 248 were online banking fraud. Online cheating constituted a massive 1,150 cases, revealed the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data.
With an extensive use of the internet for banking and other activities, cyber crime too has seen a drastic rise over the years. While 1,362 cases of cyber crime were recorded in 2017 in Mumbai, the numbers increased gradually to 1,482 and 2,527 in 2018 and 2019, respectively. The cyber crime rate in Mumbai for last year was 13.7 per cent, which is comparatively less considering the city's population of 1.84 crore.
According to the data released by NCRB, over 2,084 incidents had a motive of fraud, 154 of sexual exploitation, while 256 had other intentions. Over 146 cases of cyber stalking were registered last year and 28 cases were pertaining to data theft. Mumbai tops the list of 19 metropolitan cities in terms of fraud related to ATM, OTP and online banking along with cheating and forgery.
Speaking to the Free Press Journal, a cyber expert said, “One should always practice caution and not share their personal details and OTP with any person. He/she could turn out to be an imposter,” said the expert.
