Cyber ​​fraud becomes a challenge

Vijay Prakash Srivastava

It is very difficult for the victim of cyber crime or the police to reach the criminal and recover the looted money from the criminal. The main reason for this is that the mechanism to deal with economic cyber crimes is not proper.

There are only a few people in the middle class and upper class population who do not have a mobile phone and among those who do, there will be very few people who have not been tried by cyber criminals. Some of them become victims of the tricks of these criminals. In the last decade, a new world of cyber crimes has emerged in the world of crimes. The world is different, in India alone, thousands of people are becoming victims of cyber fraud every day.

We feel the most secure sitting in our home, but cyber criminals are leaving no stone unturned to falsify this assurance of security. Undoubtedly, the mobile phone as a versatile tool is in every hand today, but even a little carelessness about it puts us in danger. A message comes on one’s phone or a bell rings, a written or oral communication starts and then it is discovered that money has been deducted from his bank account. Such incidents of such fraud also happen on desktop or laptop. The condition is that the rapidly increasing cyber crimes in the country and the world have made everyone sleepy.

There are many reasons behind the rise of economic cybercrime. In most of the cases the offender does not need to travel anywhere to commit such fraud. This fraud can be executed from any corner of the world. If a thief wants to steal, he has to take stock of the new hideout every time and have to devise a different strategy. All these are not needed for cyber fraud, nor do the tricks have to be changed again and again. One or more of the different methods of cheating can be tried over and over again on different people. Some efforts fail, while in some criminals also succeed in grabbing the money of innocent people.

With the digitization of the world of finance, fraudsters have come up with new ways. Cash transactions in physical form are decreasing and have been replaced by electronic funds transfer. People are using mobile wallet extensively. Buying, sending and receiving money has become easy for these most common people. But along with this, cyber thugs have also become fun. The bigger problem is that it is very difficult for the victim of cyber crime or the police to reach the criminal and recover the looted money from the criminal. The main reason for this is that the mechanism to deal with economic cyber crimes is not good.

In order to protect bank customers from cyber frauds, banks had started the exercise of ‘Know Your Customer’ which is popularly known as KYC. KYC is for the benefit of both the banks and their customers. But cyber thugs broke here too and made KYC updating a means of cheating. By becoming the representative of the bank, these thugs call people and tell that their account or card is going to be closed due to non-updation of KYC, sensing the state of mind of the customer, they take away their money by taking the details of the account or card. . Now even through Facebook, financial cyber fraud is in full swing. Here friendship or marriage proposals are sent to people by selecting profiles.

They are then told that a gift has been sent to them. Later, someone posing as a customs officer calls to deposit a certain amount in the form of custom duty or fine in such an account. Or where the conversation between two Facebookies, one of whom is actually a cyber thug, has come down to love and marriage, the thugs go on demanding money citing their so-called financial difficulties. Apart from this, money is also being collected online on the pretext of offering jobs and work from home to people, that too in several installments from each individual. Offers of enticing people like discounts or gift coupons are sent asking them to click on a link sent on SMS or WhatsApp or scan a QR code. With these tricks, people’s mobile phones are hacked and money is withdrawn from their accounts, cards or wallets.

Cyber ​​thugs are also duping people by sending fake emails. Seeing such emails, it seems that they have actually been sent by any bank, income tax department, other government agency or any big company. They also contain such a link that as soon as you click it, the thugs get a way to break into your mail or computer. You can also be asked for a ransom here. People are also implicated through fake offers to give a part of the inherited money or even the lottery money. If someone is looking for the number of the customer care center of a company on the Internet, then he needs to be very careful because here also cyber fraudsters have put their numbers which have no relation with the actual company. From Noida to Mumbai and Jharkhand, such call centers have been busted which used to entrap foreign nationals in their nets and extort money from them through cyber fraud.

The scope of economic cybercrime has become so wide that a glossary has also been formed in which words like phishing, vishing, skimming, cloning have their own specific meaning. Banks, credit card companies, mobile wallet service providers, non-banking financial companies, etc. all caution their customers not to share their financial information with strangers. The Reserve Bank of India has also carried out massive advertising campaigns to protect people from being victims of cyber frauds. In a survey conducted by the Indian arm of German company Statista, which studies market and consumer data, it has been revealed that about fifty-two percent of the people in our country do not know how to protect themselves from cyber fraud. Anyway, our country is considered backward in terms of financial literacy.

In view of the rapidly increasing graph of cyber crimes, the demand for cyber security experts is increasing continuously. Eighty-two percent of companies in PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Digital Trust Insights survey for 2022 said they would spend more money on cyber security in the next year. These are all good signs, but with all this there is a great need to strengthen the cyber security mechanism for the common man. Only a very small part of our police force is capable of dealing with cyber crimes. Instead of registering a complaint when going to report a cyber fraud, the victim is often advised to approach the bank, card company, etc. Only in a few cases, the looted money could be recovered with the promptness of the police. Obviously, it is our responsibility to protect ourselves from cyber fraud. We have to be alert and alert.