Shah for use of AI to combat cyber fraud, mule accounts

Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Tuesday said the government is mulling to use Artificial Intelligence to identify ‘mule’ accounts where cyber fraudsters park swindled funds.

While chairing a meeting of the Parliamentary Consultative Committee on Cyber Security and Cyber Crime, Shah stated, “Efforts are underway to use AI for identifying mule accounts, in coordination with the Reserve Bank of India and all banks. A system is being developed to detect and close mule accounts before they are even operational.”

Shah also highlighted the success of the I4C (Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre) portal, with 1.43 lakh FIRs registered and over 19 crore users. He mentioned that, for national security purposes, 805 apps and 3,266 website links have been blocked based on recommendations from I4C.

“Additionally, 399 banks and financial intermediaries are now collaborating. More than 6 lakh suspicious data points have been shared, leading to the detection of over 19 lakh mule accounts. Suspicious transactions worth Rs 2,038 crore have been prevented,” he added.

Shah noted that the rapid expansion of India’s digital infrastructure has also resulted in an increase in cyber attacks. “Cyberspace forms a complex network of software, services and users. To control cyber fraud, we must tackle the issues within this network,” he emphasised.

He further pointed out that India has become the third-largest digital landscape in the world, with the digital economy contributing 20% to the nation’s total economy.

In addition, the Home Minister shared updates on the development of Cyber Crime Forensic Training Labs in all 33 states and union territories. The ‘CyTrain’ platform, which offers a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), has seen over 101,561 police officers register, with more than 78,000 certificates issued.