Every fifth First Information Report (FIR) in Hyderabad pertains to cybercrime, a figure validated by the City Police Commissioner himself, and one that proves that cyber crooks are always on the prowl, looking to infiltrate your bank account in every possible manner.
“About 20 per cent of the 100 FIRs we register in Hyderabad City are about cybercrime frauds. It pertains to various types of e-frauds and the suspects are from across the globe,” City Police Commissioner C V Anand said.
The complaints pertain to social media frauds, financial frauds, hacking, sexual harassment and others. Most of the cases are registered at the Hyderabad Cybercrime police station.
“In the coming days, the conventional crime rate will further drop while the cybercrime cases will increase drastically. Unless people are careful, they will easily fall prey to the fraudsters,” he said, asking people not to download
unknown or suspicious apps from Google Play Store or accept any phone calls from unknown numbers or click links sent by unknown sources through messages and mails.
Also asking the people to stay away from loan apps and online gaming apps, Anand said the Hyderabad Police had plans to have a separate team to investigate cybercrime at the police station. The existing infrastructure would not be able to handle the load with more cybercrime to be reported in the future.
“Here we accept each and every complaint and investigate. So the workload is more and to deal with it, we plan to have a team comprising around 10 people in every local police station,” he said. The idea to have a special team at the police station level is at the planning stage as it requires largescale recruitment of candidates who have necessary qualification in cyber security and related subjects, he added.