Since its inception, Citizen Financial Cyber Fraud Reporting and Management System has witnessed more than 12.77 lakh complaints registered (till November 15, 2023), and has saved more than Rs. 930 crore in more than 3.80 lakh complaints.

This was stated by minister of state for home affairs Ajay Kumar Mishra in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday.

‘Police’ and ‘Public Order’ are state subjects as per the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution. The states/UTs are primarily responsible for the prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of crimes including cyber crime through their law enforcement agencies. The central government supplements the initiatives of the states/UTs through advisories and financial assistance under various schemes for their capacity building of their LEAs.

The ministry of home affairs (MHA) holds regular interactions with the state/UTs and advises them to expedite the disposal of cyber crime incidents reported.

The MHA operationalized the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal (https://cybercrime.gov.in) on August 30, 2019 to provide a centralized mechanism to the citizens for online reporting of all types of cyber crime incidents, with a special focus on cyber crimes against women and children. Incidents reported on this portal, their conversion into FIRs and subsequent action thereon are handled by the state/UT law enforcement agency concerned as per the provisions of the law.

The Citizen Financial Cyber Frauds Reporting and Management System has been developed as a part of the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal. This module provides an integrated platform, where all stakeholders including law enforcement agencies of states/UTs, all major banks and financial intermediaries, payment wallets, crypto exchanges and e-commerce companies work in tandem to ensure that quick, decisive, and system-based effective action is taken to prevent the flow of money from victim’s account to cyber fraudster’s account. The money thus seized is then restored to the victim following due legal process. The platform enables identification of the various financial channels being misused by the fraudsters for routing the fraud proceeds.

A toll-free Helpline number ‘1930’ has been operationalized to get assistance in lodging online cyber complaints.

Cases of Cyber Crime
Moreover, the MHA has also set up the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (‘I4C’) to deal with all types of cyber crime in the country, in a coordinated and comprehensive manner.

Seven Joint Cyber Coordination Teams (JCCTs) have been constituted for Mewat, Jamtara, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Chandigarh, Vishakhapatnam, and Guwahati under I4C covering the whole country based upon cyber crime hotspots/ areas having multi jurisdictional issues by on boarding states/UTs to enhance the coordination framework among the law enforcement agencies of the states/UTs. Seven workshops were organized for JCCTs at Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Guwahati, Vishakhapatnam, Lucknow, Ranchi and Chandigarh in 2023.

A state-of-the-art ‘National Cyber Forensic Laboratory (Investigation)’ has been established, as a part of the I4C, at New Delhi to provide early stage cyber forensic assistance to Investigating Officers (IOs) of State/UT Police. So far, National Cyber Forensics Laboratory (Investigation) have provided its services to State LEAs in around 8,840 cyber forensics like mobile forensics, memory forensics, CDR Analysis, etc. to help them in investigation of cases pertaining to cyber crimes.

The National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal has been launched, as a part of the I4C, to enable public to report incidents pertaining to all types of cyber crimes, with special focus on cyber crimes against women and children. Cyber crime incidents reported on this portal, their conversion into FIRs and subsequent action thereon are handled by the State/UT Law Enforcement Agencies concerned as per the provisions of the law.

The Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) platform, namely ‘CyTrain’ portal has been developed under I4C, for capacity building of police officers/judicial officers through online course on critical aspects of cyber crime investigation, forensics, prosecution etc. along with certification. More than 72,800 police officers from states/UTs are registered and more than 50,000 certificates issued through the portal.

Till date more than 2.45 lakhs SIM cards and 42,000 IMEIs as reported by Police authorities have been blocked by Government of India.

The MHA has provided financial assistance to the tune of Rs. 122.24 crore under the ‘Cyber Crime Prevention against Women and Children (CCPWC)’ Scheme, to the states/UTs for their capacity building such as setting up of cyber forensic-cum-training laboratories, hiring of  junior cyber  consultants  and training of LEAs’ personnel, public prosecutors and judicial officers. So far, cyber forensic-cum-training laboratories have been commissioned in 33 states/UTs. So far, more than 24,600 LEA personnel, judicial officers and prosecutors have been provided training on cyber crime awareness, investigation, forensics etc.

To spread awareness on cyber crime, the Central Government has taken steps which, inter-alia, include; dissemination of messages through SMS, I4C social media account i.e. X (formerly Twitter) (@Cyberdost), Facebook(CyberDostI4C), Instagram(cyberdostI4C), Telegram(cyberdosti4c), Radio campaign, engaged MyGov for publicity in multiple mediums, organizing Cyber Safety and Security Awareness weeks in association with States/UTs, publishing of Handbook for Adolescents/Students, etc. The States/UTs have also been requested to carry out publicity to create mass awareness.