Produced by: Hitansh Gaur
In a new study, it has been revealed that the top 10 cybercrime hotspots account for 80 percent of such crimes in India. Based on analysis of data from January 2020 to June 2023, the study was published by the ‘Future Crime Research Foundation’, a non-profit start-up incubated at IIT Kanpur.
The study on cybercrime hotspots in India says that financial frauds comprise 77.41% of all cybercrimes, primarily from Internet Banking Fraud tactics like card frauds, fraud calls, and especially UPI fraud, which accounts for 47.25% of these transgressions. Online and social media frauds rank second, constituting 12%, including impersonation, cyberbullying, and phishing.
According to the study, Bharatpur district of Rajasthan has surprisingly dethroned Jharkhand’s Jamtara as the biggest hub of cybercrime in India. Bharatpur accounts for 18 per cent of cybercrime in India.
Sift Samra and Ashi Chowksey also led their team tIn a similar manner, Uttar Pradesh’s Mathura district has also taken the second spot from Nuh district of Haryana. Mathura accounts for 12 percent of the cyber offences in the country. One of the main reasons for this could be the recent violence in Nuh, which saw lengthy internet shutdowns and massive police deployment in the district. Nuh is currently on the third spot in the list with a contribution of 11 percent to the country’s cybercrime.o a silver medal in the 50M Rifle 3P Team event. Manini Kaushik was the third shooter in the team.
Even Deoghar district of Jharkhand has surpassed the infamous Jamtara belonging to the same state. Deoghar accounts for 10 percent while Jamtara has gone down to 9.6 percent.
The list indicates that the National Capital Region (NCR) has become a major hub of cybercrime. After Bharatpur, Mathura and Nuh, Gurugram and Alwar have also joined the top 10 list with contributions of 8.1 percent and 5.1 percent respectively.
The bottom three cities in the list of top 10 cybercrime hubs belong to a single state, Jharkhand. Bokara ranks seventh with 2.4 percent, Karmatand comes eighth with 2.4 percent and Giridih with 2.3 percent contribution in the nation’s cybercrimes.
The study says that the top ten hubs of cybercrime are very similar in terms of their proximity to urban centres, limited infrastructure to stop such offences, low digital literacy and economic challenges.
According to the study by IIT Kanpur, some of the reasons for the sudden surge in cybercrime are inadequate Know Your Customer (KYC) processes. This helps criminals to create fake identities while also making it more difficult for the security agencies to catch them.
The study also urges the security agencies to give equal amount of attention to the emerging hubs as they give to the proactive cybercrime hubs. FCRF also highlighted that unemployed or underemployed individuals are being recruited and trained by cybercrime syndicates, which is increasing the number of such criminals in India.