New Delhi: The Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) on Wednesday revealed that at least 16 lakh cyberattacks were noticed every minute on all government websites during the G20 summit held in New Delhi.
“The cyber attackers used malicious bots to carry out the attack. Although the attack started taking place ahead of the G20 summit, the momentum increased as the summit started taking the number of such attacks to 16 lakh per minute. However, with the help of NIC, MeITY and all other agencies we were able to counter such a huge cyberattack.” said Rajesh Kumar, CEO, I4C.
In fact, the threat actors made the announcements on their official Telegram channels to garner support in conducting illegal cyber activities with the objective of disrupting the law enforcement in India. The threat actors from foreign soil started planning a coordinated cyberattack under the hashtag ‘OpIndia’ on all government websites.
Kumar was talking to the reporters during its annual press conference in New Delhi. He said that most of the cyber attacks from foreign soil took place from Myanmar, Cambodia, Dubai and China. Kumar said that majority cases related to financial scams and fraudulent job settlement taking place from foreign soil.
“The foreign cyber scamsters first make digital advertisements and when people click on the link, they are taken to a sponsored link…and then the process starts. In fact, advertisement through digital platforms is the single largest fraud that takes place from foreign soil,” Kumar said.
During the year 2023, the I4C with the help of other agencies was able to block illegal money transactions of Rs 921.59 crore that were operated from foreign soil.
“Many of the job settlement scams take place from Myanmar and Cambodia,” Kumar said and added “We are trying to identify the advertisement and advertisers. With the help of MEA, we try to bring back all the Indians who are taken abroad through fraud.”
He also admitted that on many occasions it’s difficult to get hold of those fraudulent apps. “It’s not only banking transactions, the fraudsters also make use of cryptocurrency in their transactions,” Kumar said. In December last year, India registered 12,411 online social media related cybercrime, which was 11,672 in November and 14,284 in October.
Talking about the sextortion racket, Kumar said that most of the sextortion racket takes place from Mewad in Rajasthan. “As many as 19k cases of sextortion were registered during 2023,” Kumar informed. Of late, individuals from different circles whether it’s government officials, senior citizens, college students are becoming victims of sextortion rackets.
Referring to financial fraud, Kumar said that after Jamtara in Jharkhand, places in Bangalore, Rajasthan, Haryana are becoming new hotspots for the fraud stars who are involved in financial scams. He said that the law enforcing agencies have arrested 454 criminals from Jamtara in December.
“States like West Bengal, Odisha and Assam are the top three States which have been used by the scamsters for generating maximum number of fraudulent sim cards,” Kumar said adding “72 cases have been registered in connection to fraudulent sim card cases were registered till December.” He said that of the total 307658 mobile numbers registered in 2023, as many as 295461 have been blocked.
As per records, 1,32,66 online frauds were reported in December last year, which was 1,21,095 in November and 1,38,258 in October. He said that from April 2021 till December 2023, scamsters took away Rs 10.310 crore through different methods of scams out of which only 10 percent have been recovered.
Kumar said that States like Haryana reported the maximum 381 cyber crime complaints per one lakh population followed by Telangana (261), Uttarakhand (243), Gujarat (226) and Goa (166). The national average of cyber crime in 2023 per one lakh population was 129. The Union Territory of Delhi registered the maximum 755 cyber crime cases in 2023 followed by Chandigarh 432, Puducherry 209, A&N Island 192, DNH & Daman and Diu 104.
Kumar said that the maximum number of cases related to sextortion, online booking, Olx related are reported from States like Delhi, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh. Cases like KYC expiry, Android Banking Malware, AePS, Electricity bill disconnection etc are reported ,ostly from Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, Northeastern States. “The southern States like Karnataka, Tamil Nadu reported maximum cases related to SIM boxes, call centres etc,” Kumar stated.
He said that on an average, more than 5,000 cyber crime complaints are registered per day by the national cybercrime reporting portal (NCPCR) and out of which 40-50 percent takes place from foreign soil. “The cybercrime trends witnessed 113.7 percent growth from 2021 to 2022 and 60.9 percent growth from 2022-2023,” Kumar said.
As per the NCPCR statistics, 15,56,176 cybercrime cases were registered across India in 2023, from the reported cases of 9,66,790 in 20022. The number of such cases was 4,52,414 in 2021. He said that the central government has launched a unique number of 1930 for reporting cyber crime related cases. “Rs 12.12 crore given to 28 States and UTs under Home Minister’s contingency reserve for setting up the infrastructure of National Helpline number 1930,” Kumar informed.
Kumar said that a stringent vigil was able to block 595 mobile apps including loan apps, gaming apps, dating apps, betting etc. “Threat reports were registered in 266 cases, 2810 URL blocked, 178 advisories shared and 292 advisories were registered during 2023,” Kumar said.
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