The City of Destiny has earned the dubious distinction of being second city, after Bangalore, in the number of cyber crimes, according to the latest National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) statistics. Confirming it, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Law and Order) Srinivasulu told The Hindu , “It has come as a surprise even to us.”
Since 2011, the total number of cyber crimes recorded was 499. “In 2011, we had about 105 cases, in 2012 it was 154, 2013 -148 and this year so far 58 cases have been registered,” Inspector of Cyber Crime Cell K. Satyanarayana said.
The cell has already detected 206 cases and 293 are under various stages of investigation.
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Mr. Satyanarayana said these crimes can be categorised as e-mail abuse, cyber stalking, phishing, vishing, hacking, online job and lottery fraud, credit card fraud, skimming and identity theft.
Offences
Leading the offences in this city is e-mail abuse with 213 cases, followed by online job and lottery fraud (125 cases), credit card frauds (81 cases), phishing and vishing (33 cases) and 12 cases of skimming accounts.
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E-mail abuse is a common offence, wherein one fakes or hacks an e-mail account and transmits defamatory, vulgar, obscene and threat messages. An offender can be booked under Section 66 A of IT Act, 2008, with imprisonment up to 3 years and fine.
The offenders can also be punished under Section 500, 504, 506 and 509 of IPC, he said.
Unfortunately, most of the offenders are educated and professionals who are tech savvy, DCP Srinivasulu said.
Mr. Satyanarayana suggested that one should not only have a strong password for the system, but also use the certified firewall protectors.