Shah: Making efforts to create awareness about cyber crime

He said Prime Minister Narendra Modi led government has created a robust system to handle these cybercrimes where people can lodge online complaints that lead to registration of FIRs and prompt action.

The ministry of home affairs is making “comprehensive and integrated efforts” to create awareness about cyber security and cybercrime, said Union home minister Amit Shah on Tuesday while reviewing the cyber security infrastructure of the country and functioning of the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) — a national level nodal centre dealing with the cybercrimes.

Union home minister Amit Shah said that over 20 lakh cybercrime complaints have been registered on the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal so far on the basis of which 40,000 FIRs have been registered. (ANI)

The I4C has identified over three dozen towns and villages in nine states including Delhi, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Assam, which have become cybercrime hot spots and are being closely monitored, people familiar with the development said. Discussing the reports in Delhi, Shah said: “The ministry of home affairs (MHA) is making comprehensive, integrated and all out efforts to create awareness among masses about various aspects of cyber security and cybercrime.”

He said Prime Minister Narendra Modi led government has created a robust system to handle these cybercrimes where people can lodge online complaints that lead to registration of FIRs and prompt action. “The Modi government adopted a strategy to promote ‘coordination- exchange -sharing’ in information and data as soon as it took over,” he said.

These include, Shah said, real time reporting of cybercrimes, forensic laboratory network, capacity building, research and development, ensuring cyber hygiene of cyber space and special focus and efforts were undertaken on topics such as cyber awareness.

Additional preventive measures have been put in place by the government as a number of hostile countries have been trying for long to cripple India’s financial system and national security grid, said officials in the know of the matter, on anonymity. Incidents have come to notice where VVIPs have been targeted by hackers and a few state government websites have been used by online fraudsters to dupe people, said the officials.

The home minister said that over 20 lakh cybercrime complaints have been registered on the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal so far on the basis of which 40,000 FIRs have been registered.

In addition to that, more than 13 crore hits were registered on this portal since its launch in January 2020, Shah told reporters after the review meeting.

Talking about mobile apps being used by online fraudsters, Shah said about 500 mobile apps have been identified and banned by the law enforcement agencies.

Shah said in view of the increasing cyber financial frauds, the ‘1930’ helpline number has been launched and this platform covers over 250 banks and financial intermediaries.

“The quick reporting system and action of the task force has resulted in recovery of over ₹ 235 crore embezzled by cyber criminals from over 1.33 lakh people so far,” he said.

The home minister said a national database of sexual offenders has been set up and through this searchable registry, law enforcement agencies can look for offenders involved in sexual offences like rape, molestation, stalking, child abuse etc.

“This includes the names, addresses, photographs and fingerprint details of the offenders. It helps in identification and verification of sexual offenders to prevent further crimes,” he said.

Shah said 99.9% of police stations (total of 16,597 police stations) in the country are registering 100% FIRs directly on Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS) and the national database so far contains 28.98 crore police records.

“On CCTNS, more than 12.82 crore service requests have been received from citizens, out of which 12.35 crore requests have been disposed of by the state police, he said.

The I4C, which was launched by Shah on January 10, 2020, to deal with cyber crime in a coordinated and comprehensive manner, has seven platforms for different purposes.

They are: the National Cyber Crime Threat Analytical Unit, the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal, the National Cyber Crime Forensic Laboratory, the National Cyber Crime Training Centre, the Joint Cyber Crime Investigation Task Force, the Cyber Crime Ecosystem Management Unit and the National Cyber Crime Research and Innovation Centre.

Shah added that I4C is organising Cyber Jagarukta Diwas on the first Wednesday of every month. He said that I4C is reaching out to all the states in the country to play an active and pivotal role in this initiative and help promote cyber hygiene.

The states where the cyber crime hotspots have been located include Haryana, Delhi, Jharkhand, Bihar, West Bengal, Assam, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh, they said.