If you suspect a cyber crime, report it to the police at the earliest, the Kolkata police commissioner said on Saturday.
Cyber frauds are increasingly finding new and innovative ways to dupe people who often fall victim without being remotely involved, police chief Vineet Kumar Goyal said.
“All of us, including me, can be tricked in one way or the other. But we should not hesitate to report it to the police,” Goyal said.
He was interacting with the members of the Bharat Chamber of Commerce on Saturday.
“There are several platforms available, including the cyber crime reporting portal. But the information flow from the cyber crime portal is slow. If you report to your local police station or cyber police station or cyber cell immediately, the action is much faster.”
Senior police officers said between the pre-pandemic 2018 and to pandemic-hit 2020, Kolkata has witnessed over a five-fold increase in cyber crime and the graph continues to rise suggesting an increased online engagement of citizens.
The use of digital pathways has made it challenging to track some of the perpetrators who may be operating from other countries including Nigeria and the US. New technologies including blockchain, cryptocurrencies, The Onion Router or VPN networks were being used to hide identities easily, officers said.
The city police chief said most of the cyber crimes happen through “social engineering and less through hacking” where the gullible are often tricked very easily. These people have access to a lot of data from various places and this data is often used to bombard block messages to pick up victims, he said.
“There are smarter guys who do a bit of research on their victims through different sources, including social media platforms. So one has to be very careful on what is left on social media, how much to share on social media and keep it open to everybody,” Goyal said.
Citing instances about how Whatsapp profile pictures can be morphed for alleged sextortion, the police commissioner said victims of such crimes should immediately and not sit back fearing societal repercussions.
“Many people are not even remotely aware of how one can become a victim of such a fraud. If such a thing happens, the police are the best place to go immediately,” the police commissioner said.
“A delay in reporting makes it difficult to slightly satisfy the victims. The speed in which we get to know about a crime is the most important thing.”
Senior officers said that among the different types of cyber fraud complaints the most common one these days has been threats of electricity lines being disconnected for nonpayment of bills. The fraud sends a link and clicking on it ensures that the criminals have remote access to the mobile data through an application that gets installed unknowingly.
“Our cyber professionals are extremely competent guys and our detection rate has been very good. So please come to us and report,” Goyal said.