Taking action against rising cybercrime, the government has blocked 83,668 WhatsApp accounts and 3562 Skype accounts associated with digital arrest scams. Union Minister of State for Home Affairs, Bandi Sanjay Kumar, however, shared this information in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday. The minister further replied to a question by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Mahesh Kashyap that 7.81 lakh SIM cards and 2,08,469 IMEIs had been deactivated in the ongoing crackdown on cyber fraud.
In digital arrest scams, fraudsters fabricate they are law enforcement officers, falsely accusing victims of legal violations, and demanding that they are paid out of fear of arrest. The criminals tend to use digital platforms such as Whatsapp and Skype to communicate. This poses a problem of making them reach out and target unsuspecting persons for fictitious legal threats.
Even with the rise of such cases, Kumar said that the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) did not maintain separate records on digital crime-related arrests. However, the government has put in place some programs to fight cyber fraud and provide security to the public. In these efforts, the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), a centred agency to combat cybercrime, is an important part of the role.
The government has initiated various digital campaigns such as caller tune alerts in different regional languages, collaborated with social media influencers, and held dedicated public awareness drives through electronic media to raise awareness.
Talking about I4C since its founding in 2021, Kumar said the portal has successfully stopped financial fraud of ₹4,386 crore on the basis of over 1.33 million complaints. Besides that, a cybercrime helpline 1930 has been dedicated to helping victims report incidents or prevent financial loss. Also, to prevent international spoofed calls that seem to originate from Indian mobile are telephones, the government is working with telecom service vendors and has designed a system to detect and block such calls.
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