Cyber frauds across India over the last three years have amounted to public losses comparable with the annual spending of some states. A recent government assessment has estimated that the losses to the Indian public from cyber frauds in the last three years amount to Rs 25,000 crore, which is double the annual budget of Sikkim.
According to sources, a high-level meeting was held at the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) where officials from the Ministry of Home Affairs and MeitY shared concerns with various social media intermediaries like Instagram, WhatsApp, and Google.
In the meeting, it was assessed that Rs 25,000 crore have been lost in cyber frauds over the last three years. Last year alone, on an average, 27 FIRs related to cyber frauds were registered daily. The number is significantly lower than the actual number of cyber fraud complaints.
Data also reveals that from January 2024 to June 2024, the central cyber fraud agency received 709 complaints wherein victims lost more than Rs 1 crore, with the loss totalling Rs 1,421 crore.
“The government is constantly working on a system where the flow of information is fast. Currently, all the companies ask for various type of details even at the initial stage, which delays the process of preventing cyber fraud. Fraudsters are using social media apps as amplifiers wherein they easily trap victims,” a senior official who attended the meeting told News18.
In the recent past, from the AIIMS cyber-attack to the world’s biggest data leak from Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) to the loan lending app frauds, the National Cyber Crime Portal (NCRP) has received 31 lakh complaints between 2020 and February 2024. According to an official communication from the central government, the major concern is the very low number of arrests in cyber fraud cases.
As per the government data, total arrests in cyber fraud cases amount to not even 1% of the total cases registered by law enforcement agencies. Official data indicates that total cases registered or FIRs filed by different law enforcement agencies related to cyber frauds are over 66,000, but arrests made till this year are just 500.
Social Media Companies Recommended to Act
According to sources, the Government of India has asked social media intermediaries to act on its recommendations. Sources said the firms have been asked to proactively detect and act against fake advertisements on loan apps, Ponzi schemes, and stock trading groups.
The government has also urged them to expedite data requests from Indian law enforcement agencies, which currently takes weeks. Similarly, the firms are required to establish details of IP addresses and internal systems to detect cyber fraud groups.
The government requested the social media intermediaries for the deployment of a nodal officer for coordination with Indian agencies. WhatsApp has been recommended to implement identity verification for accounts showing high international usage.
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