Cybercrime has managed to cross most of the channels in India. A recent IndianSpend report tracks the growing number of cyber crimes taking place in the country.
It seems that even popular personalities are being attacked by hackers. Recently, an English national newspaper reported that actress Kannada Shruthi Hariharan had filed a complaint with cyber police, alleging that unidentified users had transformed their nude photos and uploaded them to popular social sites. In fact, a fake Facebook page was also created in which obscene images were loaded. Another report from The Hindu speaks of Channapatna MLA C.P. Yogeshwar was allegedly hacked by an unidentified user who managed to siphon Rs 1,90,000 out of his bank account. Many of these cases have arisen in the recent past.
The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) indicated that Bengaluru is at the top in India with regard to incidents related to cyber crimes. The study reported the number of cyber crimes in Bengaluru at 1,041, followed by Hyderabad at 354 and Kolkata at 111. Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai followed with 90, 26 and 29 respectively. The total number of cybercrime incidents in India was about 11,592 in 2015, and 8.9% of these occur in Bengaluru alone.
The Minister of the Interior of Karnataka, G. Parameshwara, on 8 June 2017 admitted that the cybercrime cases reported during the last two years did not result in any conviction because the authorities “could not get to the root of the problem” .
Most cases of cybercrime reported in Bengaluru were related to impersonation and identity theft. Unfortunately, as many experts may say, cybercrymia in India is not considered as a real crime and many are not aware of the IT Act that protects individuals and their rights in this peripheral. Online violence is increasing at a high rate and requires a lot of attention.
