Beware, Cyber Crimes Are Growing At A Fast Pace
Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator. Author of Cyber Scams in India, Digital Arrest, The Money Trap and The Human Hack
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By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2023-12-18 07:02:02
About the Author
Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator. Author of Cyber Scams in India, Digital Arrest, The Money Trap and The Human Hack
View all posts by this Author
Cyber crimes are growing rapidly in India. In 2021, only 52974 cases were registered. In 2022, there was an increase of 24.4% in registered cyber crime case to 65893. Overall, cyber crime jumped to 4.8% of total crime in 2022, up from 3.9% in 2021. These are just registered cases. A huge number of crimes go unreported either because the amount involved is small or those affected are not aware how and where to report such crimes.
Despite the Centre and banks and other financial entities putting out regular advertisements and sending innumerable messages to their customers and the public at large warning them about the risk of financial loss if they share their pin, OTP and other sensitive information with anyone, people are often conned into sharing these by fraudsters. This is not limited to the common man but techies and other experienced professionals who are normally expected to exercise extreme caution in such matters also fall prey to such scammers.
With India going digital in a big way and with online transactions expected to grow robustly each year, the risk is going to expand exponentially unless people take pains to recognize scams and avoid them. It is often seen that more than lack of awareness, it is fear, greed, need or desire that makes people fall for such confidence tricksters. What one does on the internet, the websites one visits, the searches one makes and the transactions one carries out - in short the footprints one leaves on the web - gives these con artists the fodder with which they need to approach and trick you.
Hence, it is advisable that people exercise extreme caution when dealing with something online - an offer, a threat or a request from unknown persons or even from known persons. They must always treat these with skepticism and make independent inquiry on the internet about the genuineness of the same. They must also report such approach to the cyber wing of the local police even if they manage to avoid getting duped. For, newer scams are being devised everyday and if they report the ones they receive, they might help others from not getting duped.
