Cybercrimes see highest spike among cognisable offences in 2022, says NCRB

There was a surge in cybercrime cases in 2022 with a jump of 24.4% compared to the number of cognisable offences registered the previous year, according to the latest National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data released on Sunday, which found that relatively richer states of Karnataka, Telangana and Maharashtra accounted for more than half of these cases.

- Chetan Chauhan

In all, 65,983 cases of cybercrimes were registered across the country in 2022, a significant jump from the 52,974 logged in 2021 when the number itself had grown by 11.8% from 2020.

These numbers relate to crimes involving the use of computers or the internet as a method to perpetuate the crime or target the victims on. Offences include those registered under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) as well the Information. Technology Act, and cover crimes such as frauds, ransomware and impersonation.

The cybercrime rate increased from 3.9 cases per hundred thousand people in 2021 to 4.8 in 2022, the report said. Among the states, Telangana had the highest cybercrime rate of 40.4 followed by 18.6 in Karnataka and 6.6 in Maharashtra. The lowest cybercrime rate was in Himachal and Madhya Pradesh followed by Bihar, if one excluded north-eastern states.

The latest figures are in line with a clear rise in cybercrimes, which experts have correlated with increased internet and mobile use penetration. In the last decade, the cybercrimes increased from 3,693 cases in 2012 to 65,893 and this period witnessed mobile internet users increasing from around 12.5% of the population to around 76.6%, telecom ministry data shared with Parliament showed.

India has a National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal for people to report the most common kinds of cybercrime, such as thefts from bank accounts and mobile wallet frauds. Data from this portal suggested that not as many cases are being registered as are being reported: Between January 2020 and December, 7, 2022, the portal had received 1.6 million complaints of cyber crimes and only 32,000 of these complaints ended in police cases, data from the reporting portal found..