New Delhi, May 22: The government has set up an inter-ministerial committee of various law enforcement and intelligence agencies to tackle the recent “spurt” in transnational organised cybercrimes being launched against Indians from various South East Asian countries such as Cambodia.
Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre's (I4C) chief executive officer Rajesh Kumar told a press conference here that the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) had set up the committee on May 16 and it has held two meetings so far.
The high-powered committee is headed by the special secretary (internal security) in the MHA with officers from Reserve Bank of India, Department of Financial Services, banks, Financial Intelligence Unit, Department of Telecommunication (DoT) and financial technology companies, among others, as its members.
“We have seen a spurt in organised cybercrime being emanating from South East Asian countries that include Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos PDR. The increase is in terms of volume, the number of victims (Indians) affected and the amount of money lost,” Kumar said
“We find that 45 per cent of cyber financial frauds taking place in the country are originating from this region,” he said.
The I4C is a wing under the cyber and information security division of the MHA and is mandated to tackle burgeoning cybercrimes and attacks in the country in a coordinated and comprehensive manner.
Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Kumar said that “the quantum of money lost per crime is much higher in cybercrime cases originating from the South East Asian countries and, hence, this high-level committee has been constituted to have a very focused action here.”
The I4C is “continuously monitoring and blocking” cybercrime infrastructure like Skype accounts, advertisements on Google and Meta, SMS headers, SIM cards, bank accounts, among others, he said.
