Author: rescue@crimefire.in

Since it launched in November of last year, ChatGPT has been subject to widespread attention. Cyber criminals have been quick to try to find ways to abuse the AI tool for their own purposes, from improving their phishing emails and supporting money-making schemes, to writing malware. Could ChatGPT help lower entry barriers for less skilled cyber criminals? 
To answer that question, Lawfare fellow in technology policy and law Eugenia Lostri sat down with Alexander Leslie, associate threat intelligence analyst at Recorded Future. Alexander was the lead analyst for the recent report, “I, Chatbot,” which looked at how threat actors are trying to misuse ChatGPT. They discussed who are the threat actors that can benefit from it the most, the impact this will have on the cybercrime-as-a-service business model, and how to think through mitigation strategies. 

© 2023 The Lawfare Institute

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Delhi Police | cyber security
Press Trust of India  |  New Delhi 
Last Updated at February 8, 2023 21:24 IST
https://mybs.in/2cCKiup

The Delhi Police is celebrating safer internet month posting videos regarding cyber awareness everyday starting from Monday, officials said.
A senior police officer said the campaign was started from Monday which is celebrated as 'safer internet day'.
"Through this campaign (Cool bano fool nahi), our motive is to spread awareness about the cyber crime which is increasing now a days rapidly. A one-minute video is being posted everyday till February 28 started from Monday. This is for every age group," the officer said.
Interspersed with music and message, the video talks about creative awareness in a comic way so that it could reach to a bigger audience, they said.
Everyday, the video has different topics, including earn from home, insurance frauds, ransomware update, Whatsapp and social media fake account, cyber bullying, sextortion – video calls, lottery or reward scams, dating apps, protect your information during the holiday online shopping season, payment gateway frauds etc., police said.
On Monday, the police had posted a video with caption "Raise your awareness of potential online hazards as we all celebrate Safer Internet Day. Delhi Police advises citizens to use the internet safely and responsibly to secure yourself from cyber fraud and crime. #FoolNahiCoolBane.
(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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First Published: Wed, February 08 2023. 21:24 IST

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There are currently 714,548 open cybersecurity roles across the US, according to data collected by the tracking site CyberSeek.
“There certainly is a talent gap in the United States,” Kevin Bordlemay, senior manager of talent acquisition at computer security firm Mandiant, told Insider. “There is by no means enough talent to fulfill the roles that are out there.”
This talent squeeze is especially affecting the supply of information security analysts, cybersecurity’s largest job.
From May 2021 to April 2022, there was an annual talent gap of 39,000 information security analysts, according to CyberSeek’s data.
These analysts can earn a base salary of $82,358 in the US, according to Payscale but analysts at some top firms can make more than double this figure. Two of the highest-paid analysts at EY made more than $170,000, according to publically disclosed foreign labor data.
Cyber jobs can range across at least seven categories spanning 52 different roles, Insider previously reported. Roles such as ethical hacker, information security engineer, and network security architect all reported average base salaries above the six-figure mark in 2019, according to research from Columbia University.
Landing one of these high-paying technical roles can be difficult for candidates who are trying to cast a wide net.
To get past the screening stage, cybersecurity experts and recruiters recommend highlighting unusual experiences and interpersonal skills when tailoring résumés to the industry.
When constructing a résumé, most candidates expect a human to be looking at it. But an increasing number of candidates are being screened by artificial intelligence.
“A lot of times a machine is taking the first glance at a résumé,” Bordlemay said. “Most large companies have some type of technology to look at it.”
Content and format are both important to get through this first stage. Bordlemay recommended making a résumé “easy to read with the information hitting the major buzz points.”
“Once it gets past that machine, recruiters are looking at a resume within 20 seconds,” he said.
Bordlemay recommended putting your most significant accomplishment at the top of a résumé. “Capture my attention with something unique that other people have not done. If you don’t, nothing else on there is going to matter,” he said.
Casey Ellis, founder of crowdsourced security platform Bugcrowd, suggested candidates use the start of a résumé to get across their “overall approach to work, not just the very specific technical cybersecurity things that they’ve done.”
“The biggest thing within cyberspace a lot of time is the hands-on experience,” Bordlemay said.
He added that he often looks for candidates who are creative with their technical knowledge.
“A lot of times you have to be creative or even design your own tool to be effective because the threats aren’t going to fall in a particular bucket,” he said. “The attackers know what the security tools are.”
This experience doesn’t have to be in a full-time job or internship though.
Bordlemay said that a lot of time it’s what candidates have done outside of the classroom that’s important.
He said candidates tend to leave out things like having a home lab, working on independent projects, competing in competitions, and playing around with tools to build infrastructure.
Ellis also highlights the importance of being involved in projects. “I see organizations looking for contributions to open source projects,” he said. “People can participate in those even if they’ve never worked in the space before. For example, they will look at GitHub repositories.”
In terms of softer skills, Bordlemay said just mentioning “running a club or being in charge of a project can show these off.”
Another expert, Dylan Buckley, who cofounded the job site DirectlyApply, said: “Cybersecurity is as much about human interaction as it is about technical capability.”
Hackers often try to exploit human users to breach systems rather than overcome a company’s security, he said, making interpersonal skills vital to stopping these attacks.
Copyright © 2023. Times Internet Limited. All rights reserved.For reprint rights. Times Syndication Service.

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February 08, 2023 06:05 am | Updated 08:03 am IST – NEW DELHI
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The Union government’s Cyber Crime portal (cybercrime.gov.in) receives over 3,500 complaints of financial fraud a day, Lieutenant General (retd.) Dr. Rajesh Pant, National Cyber Security Coordinator of India, said on Tuesday. Dr. Pant was speaking at the launch of a book authored by Supreme Court advocate N.S. Nappinai.
“Every day, there are people losing money,” Dr. Pant said, and added, “And these are the people who know there is a [Cyber Crime reporting] portal.”
Widowers and senior citizens were among those commonly targeted, he said. “The prosecution rate is abysmally low,” Dr. Pant complained. “I don’t want to give the percentage because it is insignificant.”
There is a “lot of turbulence” among policymakers around cybercrime, Dr. Pant said. The debate was on “whether we should consider cybercrime as a crime and let the IPC [Indian Penal Code] deal with it, or whether we consider a separate Cyber Security Act, [to deal with] new age cryptocurrencies and ransomware.”
“There’s an exercise going on within the Government of India of revising the [Information Technology Act, 2000], where we’re talking about a new Digital India Act,” he said.
Dr. Pant cited the examples of the draft Telecom Bill, which will replace the Telegraph Act, “and the [Digital] Personal Data Protection Bill, which is oscillating between personal and non-personal data.”
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Daijiworld Media Network – Mangaluru (ANK)
Mangaluru, Feb 21: The number of cyber crimes in the district are on the rise as people are constantly becoming victims losing their hard earned money. Even though people in the district are educated, they are easily falling into the trap of fraudsters.
It has been an uphill task for the cyber crime police to trace the accused who are duping educated persons in one or the other way and losing lacs of money.







Cyber crimes can be of different types like money being withdrawn from credit or debit cards, gift fraud, job frauds and many more. Sources say that several cases go unreported due to fear and self-respect.

On February 17, a man lost Rs 18 lac in digital marketing fraud, while a student lost Rs 80,000 in another online fraud on pretext of study books delivery in Udupi.
Fraudsters try different ways to scam people as they call in pretext of being the bank manager, to help find jobs, invest money or sending gifts. Whenever people get such calls, many consider it to be a genuine and share all the details including OTP.
There is a need of awareness among the general public on cyber related frauds or while receiving bank related calls. There are few signs where one can spot out if it is a scam. Calls representing bank during bank holidays or weekends, conversing in Hindi or English are a few signs where once has to get alert.
Due to minor faults of the victims, it will be easy for the fraudsters to scam.
The district and city police are creating awareness among the public to stay alert. Recently, the district police issued a few pamphlets to create awareness on cyber related offences.
• Double check for HTTPS on website
• Beware of lottery fraud
• Online app scam
• Beware of QR code scam
• Beware of call spoofing
• Business email compromise
• Fraud using online market places
• Do not share OTP
 
 
 
These days crimes through social media are on the rise. Unless we are careful we shall lose money. These days women honey traping men are also on the rise. Please stay away from them. We mus be careful about these people online !!
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The minister making Aadhaar mandatory comes under the purview of the Centre and they have taken it up with them.
Published: 21st February 2023 01:45 PM  |   Last Updated: 21st February 2023 01:45 PM   |  A+A A-
Karnataka Home Minister Araga Jnanendra. (File photo)
BENGALURU: Home Minister Araga Jnanendra on Monday informed the State Legislative council that the home department is taking several measures to prevent cyber crimes and that those using online banking need to be extra vigilant.

He was responding to BJP MLC MLC Bharati Shetty’s suggestion that linking of Aadhaar number with a mobile SIM must be made mandatory as people involved in cyber crimes procure many SIM cards under different names. 
Jnanendra said one person can procure a maximum of nine SIM cards and also need to link with their Aadhaar.

The minister making Aadhaar mandatory comes under the purview of the Centre and they have taken it up with them. He said they have taken several measures including opening 45 cyber police stations across the state.
People need to be cautious, especially those using online banking need to be extra vigilant, he said. Terming cyber crimes as robberies committed by knowledgeable people, the minister said the police are making all efforts to prevent cyber crimes. The minister said they have a special cyber unit in the CID.
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Mr Yashasvi Yadav is an IPS officer of 2000 batch and is presently posted as Special IGP Maharashtra Cyber Department, which is the nodal agency for cybercrime and related mat … MORE
Its been more than 15 years that the obsolete Information Technology Act was amended. Since then whilst the cybercrime and cyber security landscape in the country has undergone a humongous change, the only piece of legislation dealing with cyber crimes has languished rendering it almost ineffective against modern organised cybercriminals.
It is apparent that while cyber crimes are being committed in contemporary era, however legislation to deal with them seems to exist in a prehistoric age. Information Technology Act, 2000(ITA) originated in India first as a legislation validating e-commerce in India ie, as a draft e-commerce Act, 1998. The legislative history of ITA, 2000 started with the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law UNCITRAL, coming up with draft legislation called model e-commerce law in 1996 . By that time, e-commerce had made a beginning mostly in form of electronic data interchange, where electronic documents were being exchanged by business entities of one country with another. Emails were already being used for business communication. Websites were also present as a means of publishing corporate brochure in the media which could reach prospective customers across the globe.
It would be pertinent to recognise that the primary objective of the IT Act was to promote e-commerce by providing legal recognition to electronic transactions. In providing authenticity to electronic transactions it was necessary to legally recognise a system of authentication and hence ITA 2000 also focused on digital signatures as a means of authentication.
Hence, the emphasis of ITA, 2000 was on providing legal validity to e-commerce industry. Cybercrime coverage was incidental and not prominently addressed. However, in December 2004 there was a path breaking cybercrime case booked by Delhi police which actually triggered a series of events which culminated in certain modifications in ITA 2000 by way of amendments in 2008. This was the case of baazi.com , where the CEO of the company was arrested under a charge of vicarious liability for an offence committed by an IIT Kharagpur student. Police arrested the CEO and this triggered an industry backlash on ITA 2000. The modifications in IT Act 2000 in 2008 introduced to the world, provisions relating to certain cyber crimes and also introduced the concept of cyber terrorism , as a fallout of the of terrorist attack in Mumbai in 2008.
The amendments in Information Technology Act are needed urgently and in a large scale manner as approximately 15 years have elapsed since the last modifications and the landscape of cyber security with burgeoning cybercrime in the country, has undergone a sea change. In contemporary times, technology is omni-present and there are about 700 million smartphones operating in the country, the concomitant challenge to cyber security is paramount. Cybercrime threatens everything from smartphones to bank accounts to computer controlled pacemakers to nuclear reactors and even national security. The new-age cybercrime has surpassed USD 6 trillion in revenues and damages and has emerged as numero-uno organised crime syndicate globally, easily surpassing crime syndicates like narco trafficking and counterfeiting.
In the world where everyday is a technological miracle, where internet of things (IOT) is a welcome convenience. While driverless cars, clone armies of superhuman robots, money transfers at the click of mouse, smart homes and social media obsession have brought about a revolution and transformed the planet into an unrecognisable place in last five years. In this backdrop cybercrime has emerged as an organised well funded enterprise. It is appropriately called the arms race of the 21st century, where there is a mad rush for unearthing zero day (unreported) vulnerabilities and exploiting them with the anonymity of dark net or The Onion Router(TOR). Internet was born in late 1960s as ARPANET,a small network of government computers. It has metamorphosed into ubiquitous and all pervasive phenomenon. The world of cybercrime too has massively spread its tentacles. Cybercrime re-models with blitzkrieg space into darknet crimes where one can hire a contract killer or buy and sell narcotics with anonymity, ransomware, where data of an agency is surreptitiously encrypted and ransom demanded in crypto currency to decrypt it, man in the middle(MIM)attacks, sextortion, social online grooming of children, child pornography, Jamtara style online financial frauds, spoofing, scamming, skimming,BOTNET attacks, phishing and vishing attacks, hacks on critical infrastructure by state actors or even deep fake and deep nude attacks. The evolving nature of cyber crimes and the blitzkrieg with which they transform into newer forms of attacks has necessitated a massive and large scale amendment to the Information Technology Act , which makes it forward-looking, provides a robust bulwark against cybercrimes, has a strong deterrent effect in the minds of cyber criminals and hackers and caters to evolving nature of cybercrime.
Proposed amendments to Information Technology Act – The way forward:
1. Assimilation of newer innovative forms of cyber crimes:
The landscape of cybercrime has witnessed a massive change. While newer forms of cyber crimes have emerged, the modus operandi prevalent in 2008 have become dated and irrelevant. Though section 43 of IT Act talks about certain cyber crimes in a visionary way like hacking, introduction of malevolent programmes, malware attacks, attack on source code et cetera but section 43 of information technology act merely imposes civil penalties and the penal deterrance is conspicuous by its absence. However, section 66 of the Act penalises certain cyber crimes mentioned in section 43 but the stipulated punishment is merely three years imprisonment, which makes the offence bailable. The deterrence value of bailable offences,which require a notice under section 41 CRPC prior to arrest, is highky weakened. The landscape of cybercrime in contemporary times has witnessed emergence of a plethora of cyber crimes like ransomware attacks, sextortion, attack on privacy by malevolent programmes , attack on critical infrastructure of a nation through acts of cyber warfare, slanderous malafide campaigns on social media platforms, Jamtara style online financial scams and frauds, Social online grooming of children, Darknet crimes where one can hire a contract killer and sell narcotics with anonymity, Online ransom in Crypto currency and crypto currency frauds, Online gambling and betting syndicates, Spoofing ,scamming and skimming attacks etc.
The aforesaid types of cybercrime find no specific mention in the Information Technology Act. It is the need of the hour that separate sections for each of the aforesaid categories of cyber crimes should be introduced in the amended Act and all the aforesaid categories of cyber crimes should be made cognizable and non-bailable, with minimum punishment of more than seven years so that provisions of pre-arrest notice vide section 41 CRPC are not attracted in aid of cyber criminals. Introduction of the aforesaid categories of cybercrime will make the ITA forward-looking, visionary, attuned to contemporary times and will prove to be an enduring deterrent to a modern well funded cyber crime syndicate.
2. The Information Technology Act in its present form, is centralised in spirit with constrained devolution of authority to State Governments. As an illustration, as per section 67–C of Information Technology Act, relating to preservation and retention of information by intermediaries, only the Central Government is authorised to issue such directions. Similarly, as per section 69A of ITA, which relates to authority for issuing directions for blocking of offensive and contraband content on the internet through any computer resource, again, only the central government or any of its officers specially authorised are made the competent authority. Moreover, the provisions of section 69B relating to authority for monitoring and collecting traffic, data or information through any computer resource for cyber security are lopsided in favour of Central Government exclusively.
In contemporary times, it is imperative that the aforesaid powers of blocking of offensive content, monitoring internet data and access to information required for investigation of cognizable offences require devolution to authorised agencies of the State Government as well. This will significantly improve collection intelligence collection by cutting edge level agencies, improve investigation and detection of cyber crimes and provide adequate authority commensurate with responsibility entrusted to state governments.
3. The ITA, in its present form,is excessively top-heavy vis-a-vis l investigation of offences. As an illustration, sections 78 and 80 of ITA stipulate that only officers of the rank of inspector and above shall investigate cyber offences and will have power of search, seizure etc. This provision proves to be a stumbling block as there is substantial shortage of officers of the rank of police inspector and above. On the other hand, a number of relatively younger sub-inspectors are much better well-versed in investigating cyber crimes and have been well trained. Hence, it is strongly recommended that police officers of the rank of sub-inspectors and above may be authorised to investigate cyber offences.
4. The most significant problem that law enforcement agencies dealing with cybercrime are currently facing is the non-cooperation of various intermediaries like social media platforms, bankers, details, crypto, currency exchanges, owners of various servers in which relevant information resides etc. The law enforcement agencies are frequently hamstrung as its a challenging task to procure relevant information relating to investigation from intermediaries like details of profiles committing cognizable offences on social media platforms, online bank account, details of transaction crypto currency wallets, information residing in various servers relating to commission of cognizable offences etc. The glaring irony is that certain intermediaries have drafted their own private standards for disclosure of information, and in that sense, the yardsticks framed by them, acquire paramountcy above the law of the land. Incredibly, the stubborn attitude of the intermediaries is being tolerated. It is high time that lawful standard operating principles SOPs are drafted and legal provisions incorporated in ITA, which makes it mandatory for various intermediaries to cooperate with law enforcement agencies, when information is solicited from them in a prescribed and approved format. Though section 69 of ITA, makes it mandatory for intermediaries to assist government for interception or monitoring or decryption of any information, yet the provision is flouted with impunity, and hence it needs to be clarified that providing relevant information to law enforcement agencies, when asked in a prescribed format is made the lawful duty of the intermediary and imposition of personalised yardsticks is not just abhorable but also in contravention with the law of the land. The said amendment will go a long way in prompt acquisition of relevant information for investigation of cyber crimes and will bring a lot of key cyber criminals within the ambit of law.
5. Cybercrime has emerged as the numero-uno organised crime syndicate in the world. Hence, it is necessary that more stringent provisions should be introduced in Information Technology Act, to instill a stronger sense of deterrence in the minds of budding cyber criminals. Paradoxically, most of the cyber crimes specified in ITA are bailable by virtue of maximum imprisonment not exceeding three years. Cybercrimes like hacking,pornography, malware attack, identity theft, online cheating by impersonation, breach of privacy etc. are all bailable and hence have very little deterrence value. Consequently all cyber crimes may be made cognizable and non-bailable in order to pre-empt their commission.
(With inputs from Udiyansh Yashasvi. The co-author is doing part-time research on cyber security issues with Maharashtra Cyber department)
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Gullible Indians are everyday falling prey to the small amount of loans that they get through these Chinese-operated fake loan apps that are available on the Play Store.
Published: 20th February 2023 07:43 AM  |   Last Updated: 20th February 2023 07:43 AM   |  A+A A-
Image used for representational purpose only. (Express Illustrations)
It was Friday and 20-year-old Mahima (name changed), who works in the accounts department of a company in Delhi’s Kashmere Gate area, was at home. Suddenly, in the afternoon she received a call from an unknown number. The caller was a woman. “Hello, Is this Mahima ji speaking,” the caller said. “Yes, I am,” Mahima replied. “Hi, I am Nathalie, calling you on behalf of the Amazon company, we were looking for some people for an online job and your profile seems a good fit. Would you like to earn some money through a work-from-home job,” the caller said in a confident voice.

Mahima got excited and agreed to the job. Then she was given a weblink similar to the Amazon company link and asked to complete several orders for which she would get a commission for every order. Unaware of any hidden notions, Mahima proceeded further and kept doing transactions to the tune of lakhs and later when it was too late she realized that she was cheated.
It was not an isolated case, rather several people have in recent times fallen prey to several kinds of high-end cyber crimes in which people are being defrauded to the tune of hundreds of crores of Rupees every day. Devasta ted after financial losses, people then approach the police and many times the cops are able to solve the case but there are some instances when the criminals are too smart to get away.
From just minor frauds of some hundreds of Rupees to transactions worth lakhs, these swindlers are everyday adopting new innovative ways to defraud the gullible citizens of the country.

Just for the information, the fraudsters who cheated Mahima were nabbed by the Delhi Police and it was later revealed that it was not any ordinary but an international syndicate of cyber cheats, operating from Dubai and running a fake call centre in the national capital.The accused people with the help of some website developers had created a fake website that had the same user interference as that of the genuine E-commerce Amazon website. The cheats used to contact those people who were looking for jobs and allured them to work from home job by contacting them through WhatsApp of Philippines originating numbers. They used to procure details of job-seeking youths from various online job providing portals.
In another case that later turned out to be a huge syndicate, a complaint was lodged at the Intelligence Fusion & Strategic Operations unit of the Delhi Police’s Special Cell by a woman alleging that she was being abused and threatened by some unknown persons who were sending her morphed and vulgar photographs to her family, friends and relatives through social media. The complainant had taken a loan from a loan app, cash advance, she repaid the same in time. But after repaying the loan she started getting threatening calls and messages on WhatsApp from the employees of that loan app company.
In another case, when the police were investigating a cyber fraud of just Rs 6,500, it was shocked to learn that the bank account in which the cheated amount was deposited had a daily transaction of `19.43 crore. Both of these cases were the Chinese Loan Application scam. The thing is that high-tech Chinese cyber criminals have devised a new strategy to dupe people and are these days defrauding Indians via fake loan applications.
Gullible Indians are everyday falling prey to the small amount of loans that they get through these Chinese-operated fake loan apps that are available on the Play Store. These lend money instantly to any person for a period of a few days. At the time of downloading the application, the app asks permission to capture, contact list, photo gallery and other personal data of the phone of the loan seeker.
If the money is not paid, the call centres operating out of neighbouring countries like Nepal, threaten the victims to leak their personal data and make abusive comments to their contacts as while downloading the application it accesses all the contacts, photos, and other data in the phone of the victim. In this loan app scam amounting to Rs 150 crore, the Delhi Police recently made a big breakthrough and arrested a 52-year-old Chinese woman national who was said to be the mastermind.
Mewat: The new Jamtara
Anyone who is a close follower of cyber crimes flicks may have encountered the term Jamtara. Notably – Jamtara, a city in Jharkhand – has earned the nickname of the phishing capital of India after umpteen incidents of cyber fraud across India were reported with this town being the epicentre of all cases.
Even as the authorities in Jamtara are striving hard to shed the infamous image, a new triangle of cities has emerged that seem to have specialized in blackmail based on deep fakes.
The maximum cyber crime cases are now being reported from Mathura in Uttar Pradesh, Bharatpur in Rajasthan and Mewat region which is spread in three states of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan.
Recently, a Lucknow-based businessman was targeted in a “sextortion” attempt. Soon after accepting a woman’s friend request on social media, he received a WhatsApp video call from her. During the 15-second call, she snared him with seductive gestures and words. Minutes later, the businessman received another call to cough up `30 lakh or see his conversation with the woman leaked on social media.
Delving further into such crimes, this correspondent visited the Mewat region and spoke to a recently released scammer at Jurehra village in Rajasthan, located at a distance of 2 km from Haryana-Rajasthan border. The alleged scamster, who wished not to be named, did not share details about sextortion but said he duped people through the Olx mobile application.
The 34-year-old said they used to post an advertisement posing as a defence personnel and share their location that would be at least 300-400 km away so that there is no face-to-face interaction. “We used to gain our victim’s trust and convince them the device would be sent through courier. So we used to cheat them for some advance amount and Courier charges,” he said. But such scams are not only a threat to an individual but these days hackers are even targeting major institutions.
Hackers on prowl
Country’s top tertiary care, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in November last year confronted a major act of cyber terrorism that paralysed its patient care delivery system for over two weeks. The ransomware attack corrupted its servers and allowed the perpetrators to access sensitive medical records of crores of patients who received treatment there including ministers, politicians, celebrities among others.
Experts dubbed the incident as one of the ‘biggest’ and ‘most serious’ that India has ever seen at the hospital that caters to medical requirements of dignitaries like the President and the Prime Minister. The attack was so severe that the NIA had to be roped in. 
According to data, accessed by this newspaper, as many as 54,314, 48,285 and 1,92,439 cyber security incidents related to government agencies, institutions and undertakings were observed during the years 2020, 2021 and 2022, respectively.
Trying to understand the vulnerabilities which hackers usually expose, this newspaper spoke to iAcuity Fintech’s CEO, Gaurav Batheja, an expert in the field of preventing cyber crimes. The firm iAcuty, which empowers law enforcement agencies to combat financial crime, has built the world’s first hyper-automated, AI analytics engine to facilitate both investigation and prevention. “It is essential to have data secured while at rest or in motion. As business continuity requirements change, many enterprises are providing remote access to employees. The first step is to ensure that data is stored and transferred in encrypted formats,” Batheja told this correspondent.
“Central Law Enforcement Agencies should implement systems to continuously monitor and track cyber-criminals using AI/ML systems to track patterns and behaviours in telecom networks, internet and banking systems.,” Batheja said.
Dearth of tougher laws
International Commission on Cyber Security Law chairman Pavan Duggal, while speaking to this correspondent, said the time has come that we must have dedicated cyber crime courts, because the existing courts are bogged down by existing criminal prosecutions. “We now require new legal framework to deal with the misuse of emerging technologies for crimes,” he said. Duggal said that the pandemic has resulted into the beginning of the golden age of cyber crime, which is going to continue for the next many decades with it being our direct competitor.
“Now, cyber crime is our default companion, and the new normal are cyber security breaches. Indians, unfortunately, are not quite ready to deal with this new wave of cyber crime. With emerging technology, cyber criminals have got their huge potential for committing new kinds of crimes, with ChatGPT emerging as a very distinctive, potent ammunition for them, we have far more challenges with it,” he averred.
Speaking on what the law says about cyber crime and criminals, Duggal said that first and foremost, the people need to understand that we don’t have any dedicated law on cyber crime. “Secondly, we won’t be sought to cover some cyber crimes under the Information Technology Act 2000, and also under the IPC. Number three, our laws are extremely weak when I look at them as potential response mechanisms to fighting cyber crimes,” he stated.
Women: Fraudsters’ prime target
Last year in October, a woman lodged a complaint that she met a man on a matrimonial website who presented himself as an admin professional in some department of the Government of India having a hefty income of Rs 50-70 lakh per annum.
Since, the complainant woman was looking for a suitable match and was impressed with the profile of the man, she got in touch and started meeting the accused who informed her that presently, he is working at CBI as joint director and also looking after additional charges of ATS head, NIA Second-in-Command and RAW.
One day he told the woman that his account has been seized due to a vigilance enquiry and he is in need of some money and cheated the complainant of Rs 1.5 lakh. The man, who was a fraud, was later arrested by the police. Notably, the Intelligence Fusion & Strategic Operations (IFSO) unit of the Delhi Police which functions under the Special Cell and is a specialised unit, handles all complex and sensitive cases of cyber crime including those in which victims are women and children.
The IFSO regularly organises special awareness programmes that focus on Internet-related sexual offences. Deputy Commissioner of Police (IFSO) Prashant Gautam told this newspaper that special awareness programmes are being conducted for the girls and the women in both online and offline modes in a bid to safeguard them against any such cyber crimes.
According to official data, the  total number of cyber security incidents tracked by Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) during the year 2019 was 3,94,499, which spiked to 11,58,208 in 2020 and further increased to 14,02,809 in 2021. Similarly, 13,91,457 cyber security incidents were 
observed in 2022.
High-end fraud taken online
Several people have fallen prey to high-end cyber crimes in which people are being defrauded to the tune of hundreds of crores of Rupees every day
From just minor frauds of hundreds of Rupees to transactions worth lakhs, swindlers are everyday adopting new innovative ways to defraud gullible citizens of the country
Cyber crimes are of different types – social media crimes, data theft, ransomware, phishing, online lottery scam, sextortion, among several others
Attack on govt agencies, institutions & undertakings
Policing cyber space
The year 2022 saw a new low in history of crimes in the online space in India. Individuals apart, hackers last year targeted major govt institutions. Ujwal Jalali looks at the trends and capabilities of fraudsters while tracing cases, damage, legal perspectives and law enforcement efforts

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