On February 4, the Parliament was informed that more than 2.9 lakh cybersecurity incidents related to digital banking were reported in the year 2020.
Key Points
- According to the data of the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), a total number of 2,90,445 cybersecurity incidents related to digital banking were reported in the year 2021.
- On the other hand, 1,59,761 incidents were reported in the year 2018 and 2,46,514 in 2019.
- These cybersecurity incidents included network scanning and probing, viruses, phishing attacks, and website hacking.
Rise in Digital Transactions
- The scope of digital payments has now expanded due to the increasing popularity of non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) along with e-commerce.
- Digital transactions rose by 46% in 2020 as compared to 2018-19.
- The numbers of digital transactions have increased to 4,572 crores in FY 2019-20 in comparison to 3,134 crores in FY 2018-19.
Blocked Websites/Accounts
- A total of 9,849 websites/webpages/accounts were blocked in the year 2020.
- Earlier, 3,635 websites/webpages/accounts were blocked in 2019 and 2,799 in the year 2018.
IT Act- Section 69A
Section 69A of the IT Act gives the power to the government to block any information transmitted, received, generated, hosted, or stored in any computer resource in the interest of sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of the State, and friendly relations with foreign states or public order.
Fraud and Cheating Cases
According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data, a total of 6,233 cases were registered under fraud and cheating (involving communication devices as medium/ target as per Information Technology Act 2000) in the year 2019.
The number of cases registered under fraud and cheating for cybercrimes was 6,233 in the year 2019 while 3,353, and 3,466, during the year 2018 and 2017 respectively.