Rs 10,300 crore has been siphoned out of India by cybercriminals since 2021, says I4C
A staggering amount of Rs 10,300 has been siphoned out of the country by cybercriminals since April 1, 2021, the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Center or I4C revealed.
New Delhi: According to the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Center (I4C), a staggering amount of over Rs 10,300 crore has been siphoned out of India by cyber criminals since April 1, 2021. Providing details about the increase in the scale of cybercrime in recent years, the I4C revealed that with this huge amount, the agencies were able to successfully block around Rs 1,127 crore in the country.
“Reportedly, Rs 10,319 crore was lost in India from April 1, 2021 to December 31, 2023… We have managed to block Rs 1,127 crore, of which 9-10 percent has been returned to victims’ accounts,” I4C CEO Rajesh said Kumar told reporters in New Delhi.
The I4C head said over 15.56 lakh cases were reported on NCRP in 2023, which translates to 129 cybercrime cases per lakh population, showing a “slowdown” in the growth rate to 60.9 percent compared by 2022.
“In 2021, over 4.52 lakh cybercrime cases were reported on the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal (NCRP), up 113.7 per cent in 2022, with 9.66 lakh cases reported on the portal,” Kumar said.
Scammers operating from China, Myanmar, Cambodia
Giving details of cybercriminals, officials said about 50 percent of cyberattacks are carried out by “gangs” operating from Cambodia, Myanmar, China and other countries.
Citing difficulties in transferring funds back to victims’ accounts, Kumar said the government is in the process of framing new standard operating procedures that are likely to come out soon to make it easier for victims to claim their money.
Currently, a victim has to get a court order to get his money back, with states like Gujarat and Karnataka leading the way where people approach Lok Adalats and magistrates to get their money.
Sextortion and OLX fraud are common in Delhi-NCR
Highlighting the trends of cyber criminals, Kumar said regions near Delhi are using Sextortion, online booking and OLX related crimes to dupe the victims.
Gangs operating from Jharkhand etc. use online scams like KYC and Android banking Malware to siphon off money from gullible individuals.
He said other major cybercrimes are robbing people of their money using investment applications and websites offering part-time jobs and Ponzi schemes, illegal credit applications and customer service centers.
There were also vases of Android malware fraud by looking for OTPs to take control of victims’ systems, impersonation by taking over social media accounts, and extortion.
Major cyber attack on G-20 website thwarted
Citing recent successes against cybercriminals, Kumar said the Indian agency managed to thwart a major cyberattack on the G-20 website.
66 lakh hits were made every minute using bots through a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack to disable it by flooding it with hits.
Another success came when Indian agencies managed to bring back citizens from Myanmar, where they were lured by the lure of employment and stopped against their will from committing cyber fraud around the world, they said.
‘Pratibimb’
Kumar said that recently a new software, ‘Pratibimb’, has been made accessible to the state police at the project level, which will help them locate cyber criminals operating in their areas.
The use of this software, coupled with rapid response, has led to a massive reduction in the number of cybercriminals operating from the Deoghar and Jamtara areas of Jharkhand.
“The software displays the location of origin of the call, the court police officer takes action on it along with this information about the SIM point of sale.
“Police officers in Jamtara and Deoghar are taking action based on such information, which resulted in 454 arrests last month,” Kumar said.
I4C is a body established by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) to provide law enforcement agencies with a framework and ecosystem to tackle cybercrime in a coordinated and comprehensive manner.
(With PTI inputs)