The district is facing an increase in cases related to cybercrime of late.
These include call to mobile phone, introducing one as from the bank and asking for the ATM number, mobile message that a lottery was won and asking money as handling charges to divert huge funds, message on selling branded products at huge discount rate and so on.
A senior official of the cyber cell told The Hindu on Thursday that cyber offences related to bank or financial frauds had been relatively less in the district till the recent times. “Now, it has reached almost in the same level as those in other districts,” he said.
An average of 10 cases of financial or bank frauds were reported every month to the cyber cell, he said.
This was from almost a zero level of bank or financial fraud in the past three years, as per the data available at the cyber cell. The largest number of cybercrime reported related to social networking sites on abusing, tarnishing or misusing it for personal motives.
Social networks
The cyber cell supports inquiry for an average of 30 cases per month on crimes on social networking sites. The official, however, said that nearly 90 per cent of offences related to social networking sites were either settled or not come for cyber cell inquiry. The cases related to hacking of websites, theft of source code, cyber terrorism, hacking of bank accounts and tampering with computer records were not seriously reported to the district cyber cell. Cases related to child pornography, another sphere of inquiry by the cyber cell, are negligible.
The increased number of bank or financial frauds was a concern as the district was almost aloof towards such crimes, he said.
