Who is affected by cyber crime?
Each year, the number of cyber crimes reported across the country continues to increase at a significant pace. The nature of crimes, on the other hand, ranged from petty online frauds to lottery scams and sexual harassment. The sector most targeted though, seem to be in the banking and finance segment. With the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, and most services moving to the online space, a higher risk extends to other sectors as well. The latest of these involved Big Basket, the online grocery platform with data of some 20 million users in November 2020.Despite the private sector bearing the brunt of crime online, government agencies have also experienced espionage. One such security breach was that involving India’s unique citizen identification system- the Aadhaar, compromising extensive personal information including bank details, address and biometrics of over a billion Indians. In 2020, alone, the cost of data breaches amounted to about two million U.S. dollars in the country.
