In India Cyber Crime Rate up to 300% in Last 3 Years [Report]
By Prempal Singh
NEW DELHI: Cyber crime cases in India registered under the IT Act surged practically three hundred percent between 2011 and 2014, according to a report, which cautioned that cyber attacks around the world are occurring at a greater frequency and strength.
The study revealed that during the past, the attacks have been mostly initiated from countries like the China, US, Brazil, Turkey, Algeria, Pakistan, Europe, and the UAE, adding with growing adoption of internet and now a days smartphones in India has emerged as one of the primary targets among cyber criminals.
“With every passing year, cyber attacks continue to escalate in rate of consistency}, severity as well as impact. In India, from 2011 to 2014, there has been an increase of approximately 300 % in cyber crime instances registered under the IT Act, 2000, ” said the Assocham-PwC joint research.
Attackers can gain power over essential systems such as nuclear plants, railways, transport or hospitals that can subsequently lead to serious consequences such as electricity failures, water pollution or floods, disruption of transport systems and loss of life, noted the research.
In the US exclusively, there is an increase of practically 50 % in reported cyber occurrences against its critical facilities from 2012 to 2015, it said.
The Indian Computer Emergency Response Group has also reported an outburst in the quantity of incidents handled by it with near 50,000 security incidents in 2015, noted the research titled ‘Protecting interconnected systems in the cyber period’.
The study pointed out that Operational systems are increasingly susceptible to cyber attacks, as many are built around legacy technologies with less strong protocols that are innately more vulnerable.
It directed out that continued and regular sharing of internet security intelligence and information is essential for increasing the resiliency of these systems and processes from emerging cyber threat.
“Cyber attacks throughout the world are happening at a greater rate of recurrence and intensity. Not only individuals but also businesses and governments are being targeted. The profile and motivation of cyber assailants are fast changing”, highlighted the study.
The National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Center (NCIIPC) has been determined as the nodal agency under the National Technical Research Company for the protection of critical information infrastructure.