Govt plans Bill with more teeth to tackle cyber crimes

It may be recalled that the CBI in December last year registered multiple FIRs after e-wallet company, Paytm filed a complaint, alleging that its customers were cheated to the tune of Rs 9.41 lakh soon after demonestisation. The inter-ministerial panel will have representatives from the RBI, financial services, ministry of electronics and information technology, Delhi police and the National Cyber Security Coordinator. In 2016-17, 998 crore digital transaction were reported as compared to 552 crore in 2015-16 and 369 crore in 2014-15.

According to RBI data made available to the MHA, as many as 16,468 complaints related to ATM fraud, debit and credit card misuse and net banking hacking were filed with them in 2015-16 as compared to 13,083 in 2014-15. On Tuesday, the review was attended by the Union Home Secretary, department of financial services, Ministry of Electronics and IT, director of Intelligence Bureau and Delhi police, among others.

Capacity building of various stakeholders — such as police, judicial officers, forensic scientists as well as officials in the banking sector — has been identified as a key measure during consultations, officials added. As many as 1,44,496 cyber security attacks have been observed in the country in the past three years.

A senior official who was at the meeting said: “It was noted that both legal and technological steps need to be taken to address the problem. The Home Minister directed all agencies concerned to take required measures in a time-bound manner and emphasised on the coordination of all agencies in this regard.”