Recently, India’s Cyber Fraud team successfully managed to prevent a transfer of over Rs. 600 crores from reaching cyber criminals. This significant instance highlights the development within the realm of cyber security as well as the importance of having a robust cybersecurity infrastructure, which is likely to further facilitate joint tasks between such teams belonging to different nations on a global level, to battle the shifting landscape of financial crimes which may not be just confined to the borders of one nation.
What is Cyber Fraud?
‘Cyber Fraud’ can be described as any offence(s) carried out, by the use of electronic means against individuals or groups of individuals with the intent to cause them financial losses, damage to their reputation or inflict mental distress, which may further result into affecting the targets physiologically as well. Modern telecommunication networks like the Internet (which includes chat rooms, email, notice boards, and groups) and mobile phones (which have Bluetooth, SMS, and MMS) are examples of electronic means, which are abundantly made use of as the mediums to commit such Cyber Frauds, albeit, they are not the only ones.
What is the Citizen Financial Cyber Fraud Reporting and Management System (CFCFRMS)? And how does it work?
The CFCFRMS is a necessary initiative taken by the Indian Government to trace the money siphoned off by criminals. It is an online system developed by the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (i4C), to operate as an arm of the Home Ministry, for ensuring quick reporting of financial cyber frauds and preventing the flow of fraud proceeds across financial sectors. This system has brought together the law enforcement agencies of all States and Union Territories as well as 243 financial entities that include banks, virtual wallets, payment aggregators and gateways, and e-commerce platforms to work in tandem and take immediate action on complaints reported on CFCFRMS.
Upon the receipt of a complaint pertaining to a cyber fraud received from the concerned victim/target of such a fraud, the law enforcement agency basis the said report, records the details of the beneficiary of the fraudulent transaction and submits the same to the CFCFRMS system in the form of a ticket, which gets escalated to the concerned financial entity which may be the bank, financial wallet, etc. The said escalated tickets reflects on the concerned entity’s system dashboard. Pursuant to the receipt of the escalated ticket, the concerned entity verifies whether the defrauded money is still lying parked in the account of the victim. In case the said amount is still there, the transfer of the same is put on hold by the concerned financial entity. However, in the event, that the said amount has been transferred ahead to another financial entity, the ticket is escalated to such next entity. The aforesaid process undergoes a repeat mode until the defrauded money is successfully intercepted. In furtherance of the same, if the money gets withdrawn, the details of such withdrawal are filled by the financial entities for further action by law enforcement agencies.
What is the Financial Action Task Force (FATF)?
The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is an intergovernmental organization, operating at a global level that designs and promotes policies and standards to combat financial crime. Recommendations created by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) target money laundering, terrorist financing, and other threats to the global financial system.
What is the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C)?
Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C) is an initiative of the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India to deal with the cyber-crimes in India in a coordinated and comprehensive manner.
I4C focuses on tackling all the issues related to cybercrime for the citizens, which includes improving the coordination between various Law Enforcement Agencies and the stakeholders with an aim to drive the necessary change in India’s overall capability to tackle cybercrime and to improve citizen satisfaction levels.
Objectives of I4C:
- To act as a nodal point to curb Cybercrime in the country.
- To strengthen the fight against Cybercrime committed against women and children.
- Facilitate easy filing of cybercrime-related complaints and identifying cybercrime trends and patterns.
- To act as an early warning system for Law Enforcement Agencies for proactive cybercrime prevention and detection.
- Awareness creation among the public about preventing cybercrime.
- Assist States/UTs in capacity building of Police Officers, Public Prosecutors and Judicial Officers in the area of cyber forensics, investigation, cyber hygiene, cyber-criminology, etc.
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