70 Lakh Mobile Numbers Banned: Government Cracks Down on Cybercrime and Digital Payment Frauds!

To check digital fraud, the government has so far blocked 70,00,000 mobile phone numbers that have been involved in cybercrime or financial fraud, Financial Services Secretary Vivek Joshi said on Tuesday.

Emerging from a meeting discussing issues related to financial cyber security and increasing digital payment fraud, Joshi, who chaired the meeting, said banks have been asked to strengthen the system and processes in this regard.

More such meetings would be held, he said, adding that the next meeting is scheduled for January. During the meeting, it was noted that 70,000 million mobile connections related to cybercrime/financial fraud reported through digital intelligence platforms have been disrupted so far.

An official statement said that around Rs 900 crore of defrauded funds have been saved, benefiting 3.5 lakh victims. On the recently reported Aadhaar Enabled Payment System (AEPS) fraud, he said states have been asked to look into the matter and ensure data protection. He also said that KYC standardization for traders was discussed.

The meeting chaired by the Finance Secretary also discussed how coordination between different agencies can be better ensured in monitoring cyber fraud. Joshi said there is a need to create awareness in society about cyber fraud to protect gullible customers from scams.

The Cyber Crime Coordination Center (I4C) of the Ministry of Home Affairs of India gave a presentation on the latest digital payment fraud statistics on the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal (NCRP), the various sources of these financial frauds, the modus operandi. fraudsters have accepted, including the challenges faced in combating financial cybercrime, it said. In addition, State Bank of India (SBI) representatives gave a brief presentation on the Proactive Risk Monitoring (PRM) strategy implemented by SBI. Additionally, representatives from PayTM and Razorpay shared their best practices that have enabled them to reduce such frauds, it said.

The meeting was attended by senior officials from the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Revenue, Ministry of Telecom, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Telecom Regulatory Authority of India and National Payments Corporation of India. The meeting assessed the readiness of banks and other financial institutions to respond to cyber security in the financial services industry and the increasing trend of digital payment fraud, and discussed a targeted approach to curb such cyber attacks and fraud. it said.

Some of the issues discussed in the meeting included the strategy to address the menace of bank mule accounts and how banks can improve response time in handling online financial fraud alerts received from various agencies. The meeting also discussed meeting the requirements of law enforcement authorities of banks and financial institutions and allowing digital lending applications with relevant stakeholders. The meeting is important in view of the digital fraud witnessed by UCO Bank and Bank of Baroda in the recent past.

Earlier this month, Kolkata-based public sector lender UCO Bank notified the bank’s account holders of a fraudulent credit of Rs 820 crore through the Instant Payment Service (IMPS). The bank found 10.-13. November, that due to IMPS technical problems, certain transactions initiated by holders of other banks have resulted in the credit of UCO Bank account holders without actually receiving money from these banks.

IMPS is a real-time electronic funds transfer system between banks without intervention. The bank closed the accounts of the recipients and has been able to recover 649 million rupees out of 820 million, or about 79 percent of the amount.

The state-owned bank has yet to determine whether this technical failure was the result of human error or a hacking attempt. However, the bank has informed the law enforcement authorities about the matter in order to take the necessary measures.