Growing cyber crimes in India

Each year, the number of cyber crimes reported across the country continues to increase at a significant pace. The nature of crimes, on the other hand, ranged from petty online frauds to lottery scams and sexual harassment. Sectors such as IT, healthcare, manufacturing, and finance, were most vulnerable to cybercrime. Additionally, small scale businesses were likely targets of cybercriminals, given that only 24 percent of all Indian companies adequately prepared to take on cyber attacks.

Despite the private sector bearing the brunt of crime online, government agencies have also experienced espionage. With the increasing use of computers in society, cybercrime has become a major issue. The advancement of technology has made humans more dependent on internet for all needs. Internet has given access to everything while sitting at one place. Social networking, online shopping, online studying, online jobs, every possible things can think of be done through the medium of internet.

The cyber crime is different from any other crime happening in the society. The reason being, it has no geographical boundaries and the cyber criminals are unknown. It is affecting all the stakeholders from government, business to citizens alike. In India cybercrime is increasing with the increased use of information and communication technology.

Cybercrime is a broad term that is used to define criminal activity in which computers or computer networks are a tool, a target, or a place of criminal activity and include everything from electronic wracking to denial of service attacks. It is a general term that covers crimes like phishing, Credit card frauds, bank robbery, illegal downloading, industrial espionage, child pornography, kidnapping children via chat rooms, scams, cyber terrorism, creation and or distribution of viruses, spam and so on.

It also covers that traditional crimes in which computers or networks are used to enable the illicit activity. Cyber crime is increasing day by day, nowadays it has become a new fashion to earn money by fraud calls or to take revenge through hacking other accounts.

Cybercrime poses a burgeoning threat in India, impacting millions of individuals and organisations. According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), cybercrimes in India in 2023 resulted in a staggering loss of ₹66.66 crore, with 4,850 reported cases. A recent report by the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C) revealed that digital financial frauds accounted for a staggering ₹1.25 lakh crore over the last three years.

In 2023, at least ₹10,319 crore was reported to be lost by victims of digital financial fraud. The Parliamentary standing committee on Finance in its report on “cyber security and rising incidents of cyber/white collar crimes” mentioned that the domestic fraud as reported by the SE (Supervising Entities) in FY’23 was ₹2537.35 crore. According to the report, the number of complaints received in 2023 alone was 6.94 lakh.

In fact, according to a 2017 report, Indian consumers had lost over 18 billion US dollars due to cyber crimes. In 2018, there were over 27,000 cases of cyber crimes recorded in the country, marking an increase of over 121% compare to the number of the cases as two years back.

At the beginning of 1970s, criminal regularly committed crimes via telephone lines. The perpetrators were called Phreakers. Actually, there was no real cybercrime until the 1980s. One person had another persons computer to find, copy or manipulate personal data and information. The first person to be found guilty of cybercrime was Lan Murphy, also known as Captain Zap, and that happened in the year 1981.He had hacked the American telephone company to manipulate its internal clock, so that users could still make free calls at peak times.

Cyber crimes are a new class of crimes which are increasing day by day due to extensive use of internet these days. To combat the crimes related to internet The Information Technology Act, 2000 was enacted with prime objective to create an enabling environment for commercial use of I.T. The IT Act specifies the acts which have been made punishable. The Indian Penal Code, 1860 has also been amended to take into its purview cyber crimes.

It is of critical importance to ensure global cooperation through information sharing and strengthening joint efforts in cyber security research and development as most cyber attacks originate from beyond the borders.

We are living in a digital age and cyberspace is not limited to one's boundaries, rather it covers an entire world. As a result cybercrime is increasing day by day in all the countries including India. The biggest challenge relates to cybercrime being its dynamic nature because of the ongoing evolution of digital technology. As a result new cybercrime methods and techniques come into practice.