Cyber crime graph heads for the sky

Cases of fraud and phishing, which involves attempts to acquire sensitive information such as passwords and pin numbers with the intention of relieving Internet users of their money, have risen sharply over the last two years, according to the cyber crime police station at the city’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID).

Stating that the number of such cases has been spiralling ever since the cyber crime police station was established in 2001, deputy inspector general of police Malini Krishnamurthy said, “We recorded as many as 58 such cases last year, and 54 of them concerned hacking into bank accounts and creating financial irregularities. In many cases, cyber criminals had hacked into bank accounts and siphoned off money. There were instances of bank sites being duplicated by foreign nationals to get the bank customers to ‘invest’ in them.”

“The money lost by bank customers to financial frauds last year amounted to Rs56,28,142. While the money lost was recovered in some cases, the banks themselves had to come forward to pay compensation in others. The figure is yet to be calculated on the recovery side as, most of the time, banks try to refrain from paying up the money – making disheartened customers withdraw their complaints,” another officer said.

“As many as 72 cases were registered with the cyber crime police station this year. Of these, around 66 pertained to fraudulent online money transfers and hacking into bank accounts of customers. This year, phishing cases seem to be in vogue,” he added.

The total amount lost till now by bank customers is estimated to be around Rs57,83,763, a marginal increase when compared to the whole of last year. The amount may double by the end of December this year, the officer said.