Comprehensive Measures to Tackle Cyber Crime Unveiled by Indian Government
The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) compiles and publishes the statistical data on crimes in its publication “Crime in India”. The latest published report is for the year 2022. As per the data published by the NCRB, cases registered under cyber crime head (involving communication devices as medium/target) during the period from 2020 to 2022 are as under:
Cyber Crimes Cases registered | Year | ||
2020 | 2021 | 2022 | |
50,035 | 52,974 | 65,893 | |
‘Police’ and ‘Public Order’ are State subjects as per the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution of India. The States/UTs are primarily responsible for the prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of crimes including online transaction frauds and cyber crime through their Law Enforcement Agencies. The challenges of cyber space are many which flow from its vastness and borderless character. The Central Government supplements the initiatives of the States/UTs through advisories and financial assistance under various schemes for capacity building of their LEAs.
To strengthen the mechanism to deal with cyber crimes in a comprehensive and coordinated manner, the Central Government has taken steps which, inter-alia, include the following:
- The Ministry of Home Affairs has set up the ‘Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre’ (I4C) as an attached office to deal with all types of cyber crime in the country, in a coordinated and comprehensive manner.
- Seven Joint Cyber Coordination Teams (JCCTs) have been constituted for Mewat, Jamtara, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Chandigarh, Vishakhapatnam, and Guwahati under I4C covering the whole country based upon cyber crime hotspots/ areas having multi jurisdictional issues by on boarding States/UTs to enhance the coordination framework among the Law Enforcement Agencies of the States/UTs. Seven workshops were organized for JCCTs at Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Guwahati, Vishakhapatnam, Lucknow, Ranchi and Chandigarh in 2023.
- The state of the art ‘National Cyber Forensic Laboratory (Investigation)’ has been established, as a part of the I4C, at New Delhi to provide early stage cyber forensic assistance to Investigating Officers (IOs) of State/UT Police. So far, National Cyber Forensics Laboratory (Investigation) has provided its services to State LEAs in around 10,200 cyber forensics like mobile forensics, memory forensics, CDR Analysis, etc. to help them in investigation of cases pertaining to cyber crimes.
- The ‘National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal’ (https://cybercrime.gov.in) has been launched, as a part of the I4C, to enable public to report incidents pertaining to all types of cyber crimes, with special focus on cyber crimes against women and children. Cyber crime incidents reported on this portal, their conversion into FIRs and subsequent action thereon are handled by the State/UT Law Enforcement Agencies concerned as per the provisions of the law.
- The ‘Citizen Financial Cyber Fraud Reporting and Management System’, under I4C, has been launched for immediate reporting of financial frauds and to stop siphoning off funds by the fraudsters. So far, financial amount of more than Rs. 2400 Crore has been saved in more than 7.6 lakh complaints. A toll-free Helpline number ‘1930’ has been operationalized to get assistance in lodging online cyber complaints.
- The Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) platform, namely ‘CyTrain’ portal has been developed under I4C, for capacity building of police officers/judicial officers through online course on critical aspects of cyber crime investigation, forensics, prosecution etc. along with certification. More than 96,288 Police Officers from States/UTs are registered and more than 70,992 Certificates issued through the portal.
- Till date more than 5.8 lakhs SIM cards and 1,08,000 IMEIs as reported by Police authorities have been blocked by Government of India.
- I4C has imparted cyber hygiene training to 6,800 officials of various Ministries/ Departments of Government of India.
- I4C has imparted cyber hygiene training to more than 35,000 NCC cadets.
- The Ministry of Home Affairs has provided financial assistance to the tune of Rs. 131.60 crores under the ‘Cyber Crime Prevention against Women and Children (CCPWC)’ Scheme, to the States/UTs for their capacity building such as setting up of cyber forensic-cum-training laboratories, hiring of junior cyber consultants and training of LEAs’ personnel, public prosecutors and judicial officers. Cyber forensic-cum-training laboratories have been commissioned in 33 States/UTs and more than 24,600 LEA personnel, judicial officers and prosecutors have been provided training on cyber crime awareness, investigation, forensics etc.
- National Cyber Forensic Laboratory (Evidence) has been set up at Hyderabad. Establishment of this laboratory provides the necessary forensic support in cases of evidence related to cyber crime, preserving the evidence and its analysis in line with the provisions of IT Act and Evidence Act; and reduced turnaround time.
- To spread awareness on cyber crime, the Central Government has taken steps which, inter-alia, include; dissemination of messages through SMS, I4C social media account i.e. X (formerly Twitter) (@CyberDost), Facebook(CyberDostI4C), Instagram (cyberDostI4C), Telegram(cyberdosti4c), Radio campaign, engaged MyGov for publicity in multiple mediums, organizing Cyber Safety and Security Awareness weeks in association with States/UTs, publishing of Handbook for Adolescents/Students, etc. The States/UTs have also been requested to carry out publicity to create mass awareness.
STRENGTHENING THE MECHANISM TO DEAL WITH CYBER FRAUDS
‘Police’ and ‘Public Order’ are State subjects as per the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution of India. The States/UTs are primarily responsible for the prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of crimes including cyber fraud through their Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs). The Central Government supplements the initiatives of the States/UTs through advisories and financial assistance under various schemes for capacity building of their LEAs.
To strengthen the mechanism to deal with cyber crimes in a comprehensive and coordinated manner, the Central Government has taken steps for spreading awareness about cyber crimes, issuance of alerts/ advisories, capacity building/training of law enforcement personnel/ prosecutors/judicial officers, improving cyber forensic facilities, etc. The Government has set up the ‘Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre’ (I4C) as an attached office to deal with all types of cyber crime in the country, in a coordinated and comprehensive manner.
The ‘National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal’ (https://cybercrime.gov.in) has been launched, as a part of the I4C, to enable public to report incidents pertaining to all types of cyber crimes, with special focus on cyber crimes against women and children. Cyber crime incidents reported on this portal, their conversion into FIRs and subsequent action thereon are handled by the State/UT Law Enforcement Agencies concerned as per the provisions of the law.
The ‘Citizen Financial Cyber Fraud Reporting and Management System’, under I4C, has been launched in year 2021 for immediate reporting of financial frauds and to stop siphoning off funds by the fraudsters. So far, financial amount of more than Rs. 2400 Crore has been saved in more than 7.6 lakh complaints. A toll-free Helpline number ‘1930’ has been operationalized to provide assistance in lodging online cyber complaints.
The Central Government has launched Sanchar Saathi portal (www.sancharsaathi.gov.in) to empower mobile subscribers, strengthen their security and increase awareness about citizen centric initiatives of the Government. The portal inter-alia, provides, facilities to citizens to report suspected fraud communications, know the mobile connections issued in their name and report the mobile connections for disconnection which are either not required or not taken by them, report the stolen / lost mobile handset for blocking and tracing, report the incoming international calls received with Indian telephone number as calling line identification.
The Central Government has launched an online Digital Intelligence Platform (DIP) for sharing of telecom misuse related information and list of disconnected numbers with reasons with the concerned stakeholders for prevention of cyber-crime and financial frauds. The Central Government has developed a system to detect fraudulent mobile connections obtained on fake/ forged documents and direct Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) for reverification. The outcome of the initiatives taken by the Central Government are as under:
1. | Number of mobile connections disconnected taken on fake/forged documents | 73 lakh |
2. | Point of Sales (PoSs) blacklisted | 70,895 |
3. | FIRs registered against PoSs blacklisted | 365 |
4. | Mobile handsets blocked pan India | 2.26 lakh |
5. | WhatsApp accounts disengaged which were linked with mobile connection taken on fake / forge documents or involved in cyber-crime | 7 lakh |
6. | Lost / stolen mobile handsets traced through Sanchar Saathi portal | 11 lakh |
7. | Mobile connections disconnected as reported by citizens not taken by them | 39.61 lakh |
8. | Mobile connections disconnected exceeding the prescribed limit | 65.77 lakh |
9. | No. of principle entities (PE) sending SMS, headers and content templates blocked | 20,096 PEs 31,615 headers 2 lakh templates |
10. | Disconnected mobile connections shared on DIP | 5.03 crore |
This was stated by the Minister of State for Home Affairs Sanjay Kumar in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha.