New Delhi: Cyber fraud losses involving digital payments of more than Rs 1 lakh saw a 10-fold increase between 2014-15 and 2023-24, according to data cited by the Union government in the Lok Sabha.
According to the data, Indians lost nearly Rs 177 crore in cyber frauds involving sums higher than Rs 1 lakh or more in 2023-24, up from Rs 18 crore lost to such crimes in 2014-15. Between April-December 2024, the loss due to such cyber frauds totalled at Rs 107, minister of state in the Union finance ministry, Pankaj Chaudhary said.
The number of such high-value cyber frauds shot up from 845 in 2014-15 to over 29,000 in 2023-24, Chaudhary said.
However, these figures do not account for cyber frauds involving sums less than Rs 1 lakh. They also exclude stock trading scams and investment-based scams.
According to the Union home affairs ministry-run Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), stock trading scams accounted for the largest share of cyber fraud complaints in the first nine months of 2024. Why this category of cyber frauds was excluded from Chaudhary’s response is unclear.
Chaudhary, while responding to the question, also revealed that the RBI did not “maintain such information”.
While the question, submitted by Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader S. Venketesan, asked for total year-wise cyber frauds and the extent of loss they caused, Chaudhary limited his response to only digital payment frauds reported by banks and financial institutions.
The IC4 report also put the figure of total loss caused by cyber frauds in the first nine months of 24 (April-December) at Rs 11,333 crore – nearly 100 times more than the figure cited by Chaudhary, owing to these exclusions in data.
It is also unclear why Chaudhary did not cite numbers from the IC4 report which carries information gathered by the Union home ministry.
“With increasing digital payment transactions in the country, incidences of fraudulent practices, including digital payment frauds, have also gone up in the last few years,” Chaudhary said.
The minister also shifted the responsibility of combating digital fraud onto state governments, saying that ‘police’ and ‘public order’ are state subjects.
“‘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 crime 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,” Chaudhary said.
He added that the department of telecommunications has introduced the Digital Intelligence Platform and the ‘Chakshu’ facility on the Sanchar Saathi website, where people can report fraudulent activities happening via calls, SMS or WhatsApp.
“The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) takes various measures for safe usage of digital technologies and prevent cyber frauds through the issuance of alerts and advisories, and cybersecurity mock drills to enable assessment of cyber security posture and preparedness of organisations,” Chaudhary added.
