16k in 11 months: Bengaluru sees big cybercrime spike

Bengaluru: Bengaluru reported nearly 16,000 cybercrimes in the first 11 months of 2023. Every fourth crime in the city now takes place online.

While the high number of cybercrimes isn’t surprising given Bengaluru’s pre-eminence as the IT capital of India, an official policy to register every case has contributed to it significantly, a top police officer says.

As per the latest data from the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), Bengaluru saw 15,779 cybercrimes, or 23.4% of the total crimes (67,446). Phishing, OTP frauds, extortion and sextortion were the most common of the 46 cybercrimes reported in the city.

The CID shared the data just days after the National Crime Records Bureau’s annual report showed Bengaluru reported 9,940 cybercrimes last year, or twice as many as any other city in the country. Mumbai (4,724) and Hyderabad (4,436) were the distance second and third, respectively.

In all, Bengaluru reported 50,679 crimes last year. 

So big is Bengaluru’s dominance in cybercrimes that 81% of all electronic offences in Karnataka were reported in the city.

Going by the high prevalence — and registration — of cybercrimes, Bengaluru is likely to top the country in electronic offences this year, too. Going by the monthly average, the city may well report nearly 18,000 cybercrimes in 2023. 

Dr M A Saleem, Director General of Police, CID, Special Units and Economic Offences, gave reasons for the huge numbers. “We register all cases that come to the notice of the police. We have eight exclusive cybercrime police stations. Even other police stations take up such cases,” he told DH. “This is one of the reasons why Bengaluru records so many cybercrimes.” 

If the registration of cybercrimes is easy, their detection is as difficult and sometimes impossible. 

The hardest to detect are those committed in remote parts of the world, thousands of kilometres away from the city police’s jurisdiction. “It’s difficult to track down cybercriminals sitting in remote parts of India or elsewhere in the world,” Saleem explained. 

To improve the investigation, evidence collection and detection of cybercrimes, the CID is training police officers, prosecutors and the judiciary. It has already trained 6,000 people this year; most of them are police officers. It’s also training police station staff across the state in the basics of cybercrime investigation. 

Saleem urged citizens not to respond to dubious messages on their phones, secure their digital credentials, update them regularly and never answer video calls from unknown numbers.