Cyber criminals swindled nearly Rs 18 lakh in a year: Police

He said that people should be aware of what cybercrimes and how cyber criminals operate. He elaborated that, “Offences committed against individuals or groups with a criminal motive to harm their reputation or even cause physical or mental harm or loss using the Internet or mobile phones are cybercrimes.” “Some of these such as hacking have become high-profile.”  

The SP launched an awareness drive against various kinds of cybercrime in Thoothukudi. He made arrangements to paste awareness posters at the ATM centres and banks at Thoothukudi and asked the people to stay aware of the cyber criminals. When he met the media, he said that of late cybercrime incidents are on the rise at Thoothukudi district and in the last one year, in 2015-16, there have been 25 incidents of cybercrime. 

In all the incidents put together, a total of Rs.18 lakhs were swindled by the cyber criminals. He further elaborated that the common mode of cheating is the mobile phone through which cyber criminals speak as representatives of bank and demand several details from the callers. Especially, many have been cheated after they have swiped their credit cards at places such as petrol banks. 

Though several awareness news were published in media most people are still not aware of cyber crime and fall a prey to these cyber criminals. He warned the public that representatives from banks would never contact the people directly over phone and hence people should never divulge the details of their account and ATM cards.