Lok Sabha Question No. 2305 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2024-12-10
Subject: Awareness Campaign on Cyber Crimes
Ministry: HOME AFFAIRS
Asked by: Shri Manoj Tiwari

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA

## MINISTRY OF HOME AFFAIRS

## LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 2305

TO BE ANSWERED ON THE 10 TH  DECEMBER, 2024/ AGRAHAYANA 19, 1946 (SAKA)

AWARENESS CAMPAIGN ON CYBER CRIMES

2305.     SHRI MANOJ TIWARI:

Will the Minister of HOME AFFAIRS be pleased to state:

(a) the measures being taken by the Government to prevent cyber crimes in the country, including initiatives to strengthen cybersecurity infrastructure and law enforcement capabilities;

(b) whether the Government has launched any public awareness campaigns  to  educate  citizens  about  cyber  crime  prevention  and  safe internet practices and if so, the details thereof; and

(c)  the  steps  being  taken  to  improve  coordination  between  different Government  departments,  State  police  and  international  agencies  to tackle cross-border cyber crimes effectively?

## ANSWER

MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF HOME AFFAIRS (SHRI BANDI SANJAY KUMAR)

(a)to (c): 'Police'  and  'Public  Order'  are  State  subjects  as  per  the Seventh  Schedule  of  the  Constitution  of  India.  The  States/UTs  are primarily  responsible  for  the  prevention,  detection,  investigation  and prosecution of crimes including cyber crime through their Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs). The Central Government supplements the initiatives  of  the  States/UTs  through  advisories  and  financial  assistance under various schemes for capacity building of their LEAs.

To strengthen the mechanism to deal with cyber crimes, including law enforcement  capabilities  in  a  comprehensive  and  coordinated  manner, the  Central  Government  has  taken  steps  which,  inter-alia,  include  the initiatives to strengthen cybersecurity infrastructure and following:

- i. The  Ministry  of  Home  Affairs  has  set  up  the  'Indian  Cyber  Crime Coordination  Centre'  (I4C)  as  an  attached  office  to  deal  with  all types of cybercrimes in the country, in a coordinated and comprehensive manner.
- ii. The 'National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal' (https://cybercrime.gov.in) has been launched, as a part of the I4C, to enable public to report incidents pertaining to all types of cyber crimes,  with  special  focus  on  cyber  crimes  against  women  and children. Cyber crime incidents reported on this portal, their conversion into FIRs and subsequent action thereon are handled by the  State/UT  Law  Enforcement  Agencies  concerned  as  per  the provisions of the law.
- iii. The  'Citizen  Financial  Cyber  Fraud  Reporting  and  Management System', under I4C, has been launched in year 2021 for immediate reporting of financial frauds and to stop siphoning off funds by the fraudsters. So far, financial amount of more than Rs. 3431 Crore has been saved in more than 9.94 lakh complaints. A toll-free Helpline number '1930' has been operationalized to get assistance in lodging online cyber complaints.
- iv. The  Central  Government  has  introduced  a  new  feature  titled  as 'Report and Check Suspect' on https://cybercrime.gov.in. This facility provides  citizens  a  search  option  to  search  I4C's  repository  of identifiers of cyber criminals through 'Suspect Search'.

- v.
- A State of the Art Centre, Cyber Fraud Mitigation Centre (CFMC) has been  established  at  I4C  where  representatives  of  major  banks, Financial  Intermediaries,  Payment  Aggregators,  Telecom  Service Providers, IT Intermediaries and representatives of States/UTs Law Enforcement Agency are working together for immediate action and seamless cooperation to tackle cybercrime.
- vi. I4C proactively identify and blocked more than 1700 Skype IDs and 59,000 Whatsapp accounts used for Digital Arrest.
- vii. Till 15.11.2024, more than 6.69 lakhs SIM cards and 1,32,000 IMEIs as reported by Police authorities have been blocked by Government of India.
- viii. The  Indian  Computer  Emergency  Response  Team  (CERT-In)  is operating an automated cyber threat exchange platform for proactively  collecting,  analysing  and  sharing  tailored  alerts  with organisations across sectors for proactive threat mitigation actions by them.
- ix. CERT-In has set up the National Cyber Coordination Centre (NCCC) to generate necessary situational awareness of existing and potential cyber security threats.
- x. CERT-In operates the Cyber Swachhta Kendra (Botnet Cleaning and Malware Analysis Centre) to detect malicious programs and provides  free  tools  to  remove  the  same,  and  also  provides  cyber security tips and best practices for citizens and organisations.
- xi. Cyber security mock drills are being conducted regularly to enable assessment of cyber security posture and preparedness of organisations  in  Government  and  critical  sectors.  104  such  drills have so far  been conducted  by  CERT-In  where  around 1450 organizations from different States and sectors participated.

- xii. CERT-In conducts regular training programmes for network / system administrators  and  Chief  Information  Security  Officers  (CISOs)  of Government and critical sector organisations regarding securing the IT  infrastructure  and  mitigating  cyber  attacks.    A  total  of  9,807 officials  have  been  trained  in  20  training  programs  in  2024  upto October.
- xiii. To spread awareness on cyber crime, the Central Government has taken  steps  which,  inter-alia,  include;  dissemination  of  messages through  SMS,  I4C  social  media  account  i.e.  X  (formerly  Twitter) (@CyberDost),  Facebook(CyberDostI4C),  Instagram  (cyberDostI4C), Telegram(cyberdosti4c), Radio campaign, engaged MyGov for publicity in multiple mediums, organizing Cyber Safety and Security Awareness  weeks  in  association  with  States/UTs,  publishing  of Handbook  for  Adolescents/Students,  newspaper  advertisement  on digital arrest scam, announcement in Delhi metros on digital arrest and  other  modus  operandi  of  cyber  criminals,  use  of  social  media influencers to create special posts on digital arrest, digital displays on railway stations and airports across, etc.
- xiv. The  Central  Government  has  published  a  Press  Release  on  Alert against incidents of 'Blackmail' and 'Digital Arrest' by Cyber Criminals  Impersonating  State/UT  Police,  NCB,  CBI,  RBI  and  other Law Enforcement Agencies.
- xv. The state of the art 'National Cyber Forensic Laboratory (Investigation)'  has  been established, as a  part of  the I4C, at  New Delhi to provide early stage cyber forensic assistance to Investigating Officers (IOs) of State/UT Police. So far, National Cyber Forensics  Laboratory  (Investigation)  has  provided  its  services  to State/UT LEAs in around 11,203 cases pertaining to cyber crimes.

- xvi. The Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) platform, namely 'CyTrain' portal has been developed under I4C, for capacity building of  police  officers/judicial  officers  through  online  course  on  critical aspects  of  cyber  crime  investigation,  forensics,  prosecution  etc. More than 98,698 Police Officers from States/UTs are registered and more than 75,591 Certificates issued through the portal.
- xvii. The  Ministry  of  Home  Affairs  has  provided  financial  assistance  to the  tune  of  Rs.  131.60  crores  under  the  'Cyber  Crime  Prevention against  Women  and  Children  (CCPWC)'  Scheme,  to  the  States/UTs for their capacity building such as setting up of cyber forensic-cumtraining laboratories, hiring of junior cyber consultants and training of  LEAs'  personnel,  public  prosecutors  and  judicial  officers.  Cyber forensic-cum-training  laboratories  have  been  commissioned  in  33 States/UTs  and  more  than  24,600  LEA  personnel,  judicial  officers and prosecutors have been provided training on cyber crime awareness, investigation, forensics etc.
- xviii. I4C has imparted cyber hygiene training to 7,330 officials of various Ministries/ Departments of Government of India.
- xix. I4C  has  imparted  cyber  hygiene  training  to  more  than  40,151  and
5. 53,022 NCC cadets and NSS cadets respectively.
- xx. Seven Joint Cyber Coordination Teams (JCCTs) have been constituted for Mewat, Jamtara, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Chandigarh, Vishakhapatnam, and Guwahati under I4C covering the whole country based upon cyber crime hotspots/ areas having multi jurisdictional  issues  by  on  boarding  States/UTs  to  enhance  the coordination  framework  among  the  Law  Enforcement  Agencies  of the  States/UTs.  Seven  workshops  were  organized  for  JCCTs  at Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Guwahati, Vishakhapatnam, Lucknow, Ranchi and Chandigarh.

- xxi. Samanvaya  Platform  has  been  made  operational  to  serve  as  an Management Information System(MIS) platform, data repository and a  coordination  platform  for  LEAs  for  cybercrime  data  sharing  and analytics. It provides analytics based interstate linkages of crimes and criminals, involved in cybercrime complaints in various States/UTs. The module 'Pratibimb' maps locations of criminals and crime  infrastructure  on  a  map  to  give  visibility  to  jurisdictional officers.  The  module  also  facilitates  seeking  and  receiving  of techno-legal assistance by Law Enforcement  Agencies from I4C and other SMEs.
- xxii. A  Suspect  Registry  of  identifiers  of  cyber  criminals  has  been launched by I4C on 10.09.2024 in collaboration with Banks/Financial Institutions.
- xxiii. The  Central  Bureau  of  Investigation  (CBI)  participates  in  various regional and international cyber crime cooperation initiatives led by Interpol, fostering collaboration with global LEAs to address crossborder cyber crime challenges.
- xxiv. The  CBI  serves  as  the  nodal  point  in  India  for  data  preservation requests, sending and receiving such requests through the G7 24/7 network to ensure the timely and secure exchange of cyber crime related data.
- xxv. The  National  Central  Bureau  (NCB)  in  CBI  acts  as  a central coordination agency, facilitating the collection and dissemination of cyber crime information through Interpol channels.

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