Mumbai Police data revealed that 2023 saw a significant rise in cybercrimes such as phishing/MIM attacks/spoofing mail, insurance/provident fund fraud, job fraud, fake social media profiles/morphing emails/SMS, fake websites, crypto-currency fraud, and investment fraud.
According to the statistics shared by Mumbai Police, 2212 cheating-related cybercrime cases (involving financial frauds and job frauds) were registered last year, as compared to 2175 cases registered in 2022.
A total of 4169 cases were registered in 2023, compared to 4723 cybercrime cases reported in 2022, which includes profile morphing, phishing, job fraud, and other cyber frauds.
Regarding this surge in cyber fraud, Mumbai Live’s team spoke with Major Vineet Kumar, Founder & President of CyberPeace, and Pratyusha Vemuri, Founder & CEO of AI Kawach.
Explaining how citizens of Mumbai fall prey, Vineet Kumar opined, “A lot of campaigns are running but what’s missing is an effective awareness campaign, where the message can get right into their heads.”
The victims of cybercrime often fear the potential consequences of reporting cybercrimes, such as reputational damage or further victimisation. People typically complain about significant financial losses in the majority of cases that are recorded; therefore, when it comes to smaller losses, people don't even bother to register complaints and do not consider it to be a problem.
On similar lines, Vineet Kumar said, “If the amount is small, people tend to avoid filing a complaint against it. So a change in behavior is required among Mumbai people. Whether it is a small or large amount, fraudulent activity should be reported. There is a social stigma among citizens of the city; they feel what others think of them when it comes to reporting a cybercrime. Many highly educated people fall into the trap of cyber criminals, and they feel others will term them as fools.”
He further added that people need to change this mentality and report crimes so that authorities can take action and curb fraud being committed online in this digital world.
In December 2023, Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis assured the state legislative assembly that the administration was working to reduce cybercrimes in Maharashtra by creating a dynamic cyber security platform with artificial intelligence (AI) support. It will begin to operate within the next four to five months. The best 17 IT businesses in the world have been contacted by the state government to participate in the bidding process and assist the Maharashtra government in setting up this cyber security platform.
Pratyusha Vemuri said that AI can surely help in curbing cybercrime cases. She added, “People who stay in big cities like Mumbai are multi-tasking throughout the day. Hence, just to get done with work, they do not sense fake calls as they are quite busy and end up giving otps to the person speaking with them on call. AI can help in predicting and detecting cyber fraud. If used properly, AI can notify if the call or text is genuine or not by sending a notification or a ring on mobile or mail. This feature of AI can help in reducing cyber crimes as people will get a notification while they are on call, saving them from sharing confidential data.”
On the contrary, Vineet Kumar said, “AI has been helpful in every sector, be it healthcare, science, aviation, etc. Since AI emerged, many kinds of digital crimes have been reported. But any kind of technology has a lot of advantages and disadvantages as well. For example, people started to use FraudGPT for writing phishing emails or campaigns leading to financial fraud.”
What Is FraudGPT?
People's attention has been drawn to ChatGPT, which has changed the way they obtain information online and work around it. FraudGPT is something similar to chatGPT. FraudGPT is a product available on Telegram and the dark web that generates content to aid in cyberattacks. In July 2023, fraudGPT was detected for the first time. The fact that fraudGPT lacks the internal restrictions and controls that stop chatGPT from performing or responding to improper requests was a key selling feature.
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