Gurcharan Singh, cyber faculty member with Central Detective Training School.
What are the ways to prevent the people from felling prey to latest modes of cyber crimes?
Prevention is always better than cure. And I believe only awareness about the cyber methods can save the general public. If we study cyber frauds and cheating cases, we can conclude that most of the victims belong to elite class and they are well educated. The problem starts when they are not aware of the evolving cyber techniques and different ways of committing crimes by the cyber criminals. In 2014, people lost their money after receiving fake emails on their email IDs and in following years, we observed that such cases are less reported. Reason: by the time people knew about this mode of cyber crime, they stopped entertaining such emails.
Are the cyber criminals smarter than the cyber crime detectives?
Never. But criminals are the attackers and we are the defenders. Recently, Delhi Police nabbed a man of Jharkhand, Ram Kumar Mandal, who had duped over 1 lakh people through his agents making bogus calls to victims for obtaining their confidential details about their bank accounts. Ram Kumar Mandal is a simply matriculate and trained in mobile repairing. His victims are businessmen, bank executives, government employees and even college-going students. We should understand it is all technology.
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What will you say about people being cheated on the pretext of investment in Bitcoins?
Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, which is valid in various countries and people in India also invested money in this for gaining profit in a short time. Indeed, there are people, who have benefited by the investment in the Bitcoin, but cases of cheating are also being reported. In India, there are still no such rule and law which bans this cryptocurrency. Reserve Bank of India is in the process of controlling this method of currency and framing guidelines for it.