90% drop in phishing cases in Ahmedabad

There seems to be a striking breakthrough in curbing cyber crime in the country, perhaps thanks to officials of Ahmedabad's Directorate of Crime Branch. Officials monitoring cyber crimes in the city claim phishing incidents have reduced by 90% in the past few months.

Police inspector, DCB (cyber crime) Kiran Patel says over 100 cases of phishing were registered in Ahmedabad city in 2010, but in 2011, only about 10-12 were lodged. This is attributed to a recommendation by DCB to a reputed bank in the city, to filter requests coming on their servers from IP addresses from destinations like Nigeria, which are infamous for such frauds. "We gave this recommendation to the local branch of a nationalised bank after many phishing frauds were reported over the last few years. Early last year, we had a meeting with banking officials and we suggested that they should examine closely any requests they would receive for sharing of information from any countries with which India does not have a Treaty,' Patel says.

He says suggestion was implemented a bit sceptically to begin with, but within a few months, the incidents reduced and the same bank implemented it nationally; requesting not to reveal the identity of bank.    

"Over the next few months, as reduction in phishing cases were perceptible, other banks also started implementing this security measure. A year later, we can now confidently say number of cases have reduced substantially," he adds.

Phishing and spamming have been the bane of every internet user's online experience since the dawn of the digital age. Cops claim that Nigeria-based fraudsters are top cyber criminals account for biggest share of the phishing pie.