With pandemic and lockdown in tow, the cyber fraudsters have worked their way into households, which has resulted in a substantial rise in cyber crime. While 2020 had recorded 2,435 cases of cyber crime, last year the number rose by 2,883. The detection, however, doubled, revealed the statistics.
Most cyber crimes that have seen a rise were credit and debit card frauds, which included cloning, cheating and phishing, rising from 558 cases in 2020 to 1,075 cases last year. Various types of modus operandi were used for duping people through this medium by calling citizens on the pretext of updating the KYC for a payment gateway app, bank account or SIM cards, wherein the fraudster sends bulk SMS to random numbers, asking them to call back for 'uninterrupted service'.
There was an exponential rise in fake social media profiles, morphing which rose from 30 cases in 2020 to 188 cases last year. Most of these cases can be attributed to the pandemic-induced-lockdown boredom, wherein many fraudsters took to the web, to blurt out their frustrations and spread panic, hate and defamation, said a senior police official.
Phishing and spoof emails too saw a rise from 51 to 81 last year, wherein the netizens were asked to follow a link in their email to claim a prize. Speaking to the Free Press Journal, a cyber crime expert Ravi Mahajan said, "Cyber crime awareness is very low in our country and it needs to be worked on. Moreover, virtual social media platforms are addictive and one often is trapped to not be lonely. However, it is more often too late to realise when one has been trapped in the con."
The detection of Cyber crime cases has increased from 207 in 2020 to 455 last year, that police are cracking a whip on these fraudsters and have also been keeping a tab on their regular social media activities. Cyber expert Mahajan also added that even as the government and police have the equipment and manpower to tackle cyber crime, somewhere people also have to keep themselves updated and not fall prey to the con.
