New Delhi: In the year 2020, when the rates of most of the serious crimes fell, the cases of cybercrime recorded an 11.8% increase, NCRB's 'Crime in India 2020' report shows.
A total of 50,035 cases were registered under Cyber Crimes, showing an increase of 11.8% in cases registered over 2019 (44,735 cases). Crime rate under this category increased from 3.3% in 2019 to 3.7% in 2020, the NCRB data released this week showed.
Cybercrimes registered 11 pc increase last year amid lockdown During 2020, 60.2% of cybercrime cases registered were for the motive of fraud (30,142 out of 50,035 cases) followed by sexual exploitation with 6.6% (3,923 cases) and extortion with 4.9% (2,440 cases), as per the data.
Speaking to ETV Bharat, Anuj Agarwal, chairman, Center for Research on Cybercrime and Cyberlaw, said, "Due to the lockdown, people moved to the digital transaction and that was a welcome move but since the number of transactions have gone by and people rushed to start using digital technologies, they were all not well aware and prepared and that's why the cases of cybercrime rose by large percentage."
According to the NCRB data, a maximum of 11,097 cybercrime cases were reported in Uttar Pradesh followed by Karnataka (10,741), Maharashtra (5,496), Telangana (5,024) and Assam (3,530).
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"One of the reasons behind the increase in cybercrimes in UP would be the literacy rate as during the lockdown there were many people who went for the digital transactions for the very first time," said the cyber expert.
For yet another year, the IT capital of the country, Bengaluru topped the country in the highest number of cybercrimes. Agarwal said Bengaluru and Hyderabad are some of those cities which started focusing on cyber frauds from the very beginning. When the people of the city are more tech-savvy then the number of digital transactions will go higher and that is another reason for the increase in cyber frauds in that particular city.
Across metropolitan cities, a total of 18,657 cases have been registered under cybercrimes, showing an increase of 0.8% over 2019 (18,500 cases). Among the four major metropolitan cities, Delhi registered the least number of cybercrime cases at 166. However, the Delhi police data shared in February showed that between May and August last year - around 4,000 cases were reported each month.
Agarwal said, "Whether we go by NCRB or any local police, the data is in multiples whatever is being reported by the agencies. Another reason behind the mismatch in numbers could be because lots of fraud cases remain unreported as cyber thieves stole money in small amounts and that is being ignored by the people who go for digital transactions."
According to the NCRB data, the financial capital of India, Mumbai, witnessed 57 cases of OTP fraud. Speaking on the increasing trend of such kinds of fraud, the cyber expert explained that no bank or financial institution asks for OTP or online verification through phone calls. So, one should not share OTPs via phone calls and also no unknown applications should be downloaded.
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Speaking on the feasibility of the Union Home Ministry's dedicated portal for reporting cybercrime - cybercrime.gov.in, Anuj Agarwal said it is a good step by the government that people are now able to file their complaints online, but the process of filing complaints on the portal is not friendly as even the educated people are not able to file the complaints easily.
He suggested that the cybercrime portal should be made friendly for the people who are even less literate, the website should also include the feature of voice assistant and a dedicated team for arresting cyber thieves that can move from one state to another because most of such crimes happen inter-state.
