It’s no longer just slow economic growth that the Government has to worry over. Cyber crime has now proven to be yet-another drain on the wealth of Indians. India lost a total of $8 billion dollars to cyber crime over the past year, with close to 42 million people targeted by online fraudsters, according to the latest Norton Cyber Crime Report.
The average direct financial cost per victim is $192 (Rs.10, 600), slightly less than the global average of $197.
This is partly due to the rapid adoption of mobile device internet-usage, as internet crooks are now starting to focus their efforts on “increasingly popular platforms such as social networks and mobile phones”.
Based on a survey of 13,000 adults across 24 countries, the financial costs are calculated by collating self-reported direct losses in the form of fraud, theft and repairs. The report paints the security-awareness of Indians in an unfavourable light, as it goes onto say: “while 83 per cent of respondents believe that social networks are being targeted, only around half actually use a security solution or privacy settings to control what information they share.” “This year’s data indicate that many online adults are unaware of the latest forms of cyber crime and thus find it hard to recognize how malware act on their computer,” the report said.
