Journalism of Courage
IIT Madras study reveals educated professionals more prone to financial cybercrime
In the study, the researchers also outline country-specific tactics used by fraudsters, including threats related to Aadhaar and UPI-based transfers, fake investment platforms claiming SEBI registration, and digital arrest scams.
IIT Madras's study on 33 cybercrime victims (Photo: AI Generated)
The researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras conducted a study that revealed that financial cybercrime victims in India are not necessarily digitally unaware or inexperienced; rather, they are highly educated.
Professionals such as those working in the IT sector, bankers, doctors, finance and management professionals, public-sector officers, and individuals with cybersecurity certifications are equally prone to cyber fraud.
While high digital literacy fails to protect individuals single-handedly from financial cybercrime, the research throws light on a psychological angle involved in online frauds.
The researchers found that online fraudsters often exploited victims during their vulnerable periods, such as stress or life disruption, including illness in the family, retirement, job searches, or workplace pressure, and used their emotional, financial, and reputational concerns to create urgency and impair their decision-making. The impairment has been described as an “engineered brain freeze” or “mind arrest” by researchers.
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The financial losses reported by participants ranged from a few thousand rupees to more than Rs 1 crore, while they faced consequences including shame, insomnia, depression and loss of family trust.
The findings of this research are based on semi-structured interviews with 33 financial cybercrime victims, comprising 22 men and 11 women and 12 senior citizens from metropolitan cities like Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, New Delhi and Mumbai. Interviews were conducted in English, Hindi and Tamil and analysed using the Gioia methodology.
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The research team was headed by Kandaswamy, IPS (Retd), and Nandan Sudarsanam of IIT Madras, in collaboration with Akanksha Jaiswal, Associate Professor at The University of Western Australia, Chennai Campus, and Ameeta Fernando of Loyola Institute of Business Administration, Chennai. It also received support from the Wadhwani School of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence at IIT Madras.
In the study, the researchers also outline country-specific tactics used by fraudsters, including threats related to Aadhaar and UPI-based transfers, fake investment platforms claiming SEBI registration, and digital arrest scams.
As a disclaimer, the researchers clarified that the study is qualitative and metropolitan in scope and mainly represents victims who came forward to share their experiences.
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