Asking citizens to be cautious while being online, National Security Adviser (NSA) Ajit Doval said on Friday financial frauds have seen an exponential increase due to greater dependence on digital payment platforms following the Covid-19 pandemic.
He was delivering a lecture on cybersecurity virtually at the COCONXIII-2020, data privacy and hacking conference hosted by the Kerala Police and the Society for the Policing of Cyberspace and Information Security Research Association.
“There is a greater dependence on digital payment platform due to reduced cash handling and greater data sharing is happening online and presence on social media has also increased. While we are able to manage our affairs online to a certain extent, malicious actors also found in it, a new opportunity,” Doval said.
Doval said there was an increase of 500 per cent in cybercrimes due to limited awareness and cyber hygiene.
Nearly half of the Indian consumers are more concerned about digital payments fraud now than when the novel coronavirus first emerged, according to a study by a UK-based market research firm YouGov and NASDAQ-listed ACI Worldwide.
Nearly one-third of the consumers (31%) have been a recent victim of a card or digital payment fraud or know someone among their immediate family or friends who has. Among them, 17 per cent of those frauds have been within the last month, according to a report.
