Jalandhar's cyber cell receiving over 100 plaints/month

Avneet Kaur

Jalandhar, May 8

With increasing use of technology and online activities, the city’s Cyber Crime Unit has witnessed a rapid rise in the number of cyber crimes being reported.

While the cases of cyber frauds related to debit, ATM and credit card fraud and card cloning continued to increase and transform before Covid-19 crisis, it seems the pandemic have further worsened the situation by giving swindlers the chance to come up with more sophisticated and professional cyber attacks.

The data of cyber crimes available at the National Crime Records Bureau and at other cyber security websites, shows a five-fold increase in the cyber frauds cases in the recent past and depicts an urgent need to strengthen the country’s digital space.

Talking about Jalandhar in particular, the Cyber Crime Unit of the city police, in the last three months, have registered 312 complaints regarding different cyber crimes.

As per ACP Security, Karan Sandhu, the majority of these complaints received with the city police are related to OTP sharing fraud, customer care number fraud, loan app fraud, impersonating as a relative from abroad and fake IDs on social media networks.

He said out of these 312 complaints received in the last three months, 50 complaints have been disposed of, while FIRs have been registered in nine cases and 253 complaints are pending as they were yet to receive data from TSP, ISP, financial institutions and payment wallets.

On being asked the possible reasons behind the rise in the cyber crime, ACP Karan said the dependency on the internet for all our needs and the lack of awareness regarding cyber security are the main reasons behind people falling prey to such frauds. He said the most common complaint they receive is that of phishing where customers are called by swindlers to ask for their personal financial information like OTP, CVV, etc.

He further said people should avoid sharing their personal information with customer care persons, especially those whose number they take from the internet. “They should keep the number of bank officials and seek assistance from them in case of emergency. Besides, they should keep strong passwords for their social media accounts and ensure their privacy is enabled to prevent their Ids from being hacked and misuse of their images for creating Fake ID.

Previous cases

• Five residents based in Jalandhar, Adampur, Hoshiarpur and other districts have fallen prey to WhatsApp call fraud and lost over Rs 5 lakh. The victims of this fraud received a WhatsApp call or a message, from someone claiming to be a family member or friend from abroad in need of help.
• Another city-based resident Sachiv Kumar became victim of a fake loan assist App. The staff of the fake app tampered with his Aadhaar, PAN cards in a bid to extort money from him. He was so badly trapped in this loan scam that he attempted to commit suicide.

Report at 1930 immediately: ACP

ACP (Security) Karan Sandhu said the residents must report cyber crimes of any nature at 1930 toll-free helpline. He said they can register complaints anytime by dialling 1930 as police personnel were available at the Cyber Crime Unit 24X7. He said a well-equipped and trained team of the cyber crime cell is working round-the-clock to save the hard-earned money of citizens.

Cyber awareness must: Experts

Talking to The Tribune, cyber security experts in the city said that across the globe, governments, businesses, and citizens were facing an ever-increasing risk from cyber threats. They said the problem in India was that a majority of the people lag behind in cyber-security awareness. “Over 40 per cent young Indians are using the same password for a lot of online services, which makes it easy for hackers to hijack accounts, websites, etc with ease,” they added.

Use internet judiciously

The dependency on the internet for all our needs and the lack of awareness regarding cyber security are the main reasons behind people falling prey to such frauds. — Karan Sandhu, ACP, Security