India to see 65 per cent rise in mobile frauds in 2017: Study

NEW DELHI: India will see a 65% jump in mobile fraud by 2017 as 40-45% of financial transactions are done via mobile devices, according to a joint study by industry chamber Assocham and consultancy firm EY.

The release issued on Monday on the study titled 'Strategic National Measures to Combat Cyber crime' highlighted that there has been a six-fold increase in credit and debit card fraud over the past three years. The data showed that 46% complaints of online banking are related to credit debit card fraud followed by Facebook (39%) related complaints which include morphed pictures, cyber stalking, and cyber bullying.

Other cyber complaints include cheating through mo bile (21%), hacking of email ID (18%), abusive offensive obscene calls and SMS (12%), and others. According to the study, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra are the top three states with the most cyber crimes registered under the new Information Technology Act in India. The study suggested that there is a need for a dedicated national governing unit in India, which can be the central agency for all state government cyber crime agencies to coordinate, integrate and share information related to cyber crime.

Also, maintaining a centralised cyber criminal database is important to discourage cyber criminals from engaging in spurious activities in cyberspace. Countries such as the USA and Australia have maintained a central repository of cyber criminals.

The report noted Australia's and Canada's cyber security strategy where the former has formulated a national plan to combat cyber crime and the latter is focused on a plan for meeting cyber threat and helping Canadians to be secure online.