'89% of money you lose to cybercrooks is lost forever'

BENGALURU: A 62-year-old Bengalurean's life savings of Rs 9 crore crumbled to dust with a single fake OTP. After reporting it to the cops, he could only recover around Rs 80 lakh. Every day, tales of shattered trust, financial ruin, and digital deception unfold in various parts of the country because of

cybercrime

.
In this era of evolving technology, how many people know how to actually

safeguard

themselves on the internet, asked C Vamsi Krishna, deputy inspector general of police, economic and cyber offences, CID-Karnataka, at a workshop conducted on cybersecurity on Saturday. "Millions of us use UPI in our day-to-day lives. However, how many know the backend process of a UPI transaction? It is a simple process actually, and if a criminal understands it, he can get crafty and commit a cybercrime," he said.
"Most of us have this habit of first using the technology, falling prey and then doing research like this. While some recover funds, a staggering 89% of the money remains unrecovered. Bengaluru, a cybercrime hotspot, witnessed a doubling of cases from 2022 to 2023, with a disheartening decline in detection rates. According to city police, only around 12% of the total Rs 900 crore lost was returned to complainants, leaving a substantial amount irretrievable. The city recorded 1,200 detected cases in the past year alone, undoubtedly a fraction of the actual occurrences," Krishna said.
AI & cyberfraud

Artificial intelligence (AI) plays a key role in many cybercrimes recorded in the past few months, continued Krishna. "If I input thousands of passwords into the system, the AI machine could guess the next password. Its potential extends to various tasks, like crafting convincing emails or messages to easily deceive you. Deepfakes and manipulated audio notes have been prevalent in the mainstream media recently. AI has made organizing cybercrime easier and busting it complex," the officer explained.