In the aftermath of the COVID19 pandemic, number of online frauds have risen alarmingly in India, as a result of increased tech usage.
According to a Statista report in 2020, the state of Maharashtra in India had the highest number of cyber fraud offences with over three thousand cases registered with the authorities.
The country recorded over ten thousand cases of cyber stalking and bullying offences that year. This category of crime came under the purview of Sections 420, 465, 468 and 471 of the Indian Penal Code.
According to the latest data released by the Reserve Bank of India, commercial banks in India reported Rs 1.38 trillion of frauds in 2020-21, as compared to Rs 1.85 trillion in the previous year. The first half of the current fiscal year saw banks reporting frauds worth Rs 36,342 crore.
Recently, Bollywood actor Sunny Leone had revealed through a tweet on her Twitter account that she fell prey to online fraud. Sunny Leone claimed that her PAN card was used to take a loan of Rs 2000 through a fintech platform Dhani Stocks Limited and that it affected her CIBIL score.
The actor had shared the news on Twitter. In her now-deleted Tweet, Sunny wrote that “This happened to me. Insane. Some idiot used my PAN to take a Rs 2000 loan,” according to media reports.
The actor in another tweet thanked the authorities for fixing the issue and helping her. “Thank you for swiftly fixing this and making sure it will NEVER happen again. I know you will take care of all the others who have issues to avoid this in the future. No one wants to deal with a bad CIBIL!! I’m referring to my previous post,” said Leone in a post on her Twitter account. Other users also started reacting to the actor’s tweet sharing similar experiences.
A CIBIL Score is a 3-digit numeric summary of your credit history, rating and report, and ranges from 300 to 900. The closer your score is to 900, the better your credit rating is.
The cyber security market in India was valued at nearly 140 billion Indian rupees in 2019. With the growth in digital adoption, leading to increased attacks online, the market was estimated to reach close to 290 billion rupees by 2025, a Statista report added.
According to data from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) India saw 229 banking frauds per day in the financial year 2020-21, of which less than 1 per cent has been recovered.
India saw 83,638 cases of banking frauds in FY21, involving Rs 1.38 lakh crore. Of this, only Rs 1,031.31 crore has been recovered so far, as per the data provided by the RBI in response to a Right to Information (RTI) query filed by India Today.
According to reports there were 84,540 frauds which took place in FY20. The total amount involved was Rs 1.86 lakh crore, of which Rs 16,197 crore has been recovered.
The COVID19 pandemic has given the rise to cybercrimes. The nature of cybercrime is on an individual, organisation and state/society level. The question here is what is the importance of awareness when it comes to cybersecurity.
In the total cybercrime landscape, online social media fraud consists of 24 per cent, online financial fraud is at 56 per cent. “Most of them are linked to frauds related to UPI in which money is debited by scanning a QR code. 99 per cent of people are unaware that when someone is asking them to scan a QR code it is for taking their money (unlawfully),” said Triveni Singh.
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