Over ******* cases of cyber crime were reported to the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) in India within the first four months of 2024 alone. The number of cyber crimes in the country saw a massive spike between 2019 and 2020 and has been on the rise ever since. Roughly ** percent of the reports in 2024 were related to online financial fraud.

In the initial four months of 2024, nearly ****** cases of investment scams were reported to the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre established by the Ministry of Home Affairs of India. This was followed by reports of trading scams amounting to over ****** cases during the same period. The overall number of cyber crime cases in India reported during that period amounted to more than *******.

In the first four months of 2024, trading scams cost Indians losses of over ** billion Indian rupees, reported across more than ****** cases. According to the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre, Indians fell victim to online investment fraud, algorithm manipulation, gaming and illegal lending apps, OTP scams, and sextortion.

The losses incurred due to cyber fraud activity in India spiked to over *** billion Indian rupees in the financial year 2024. These were particularly attributed to credit card, debit card, and internet banking fraud. Cyber criminal activity in India has grown at an alarming rate over the past few years, with over ******* cases reported between January and April 2024 alone.

In 2024, the number of data compromises in the United States stood at 3,158 cases. Meanwhile, over 1.35 billion individuals were affected in the same year by data compromises, including data breaches, leakage, and exposure. While these are three different events, they have one thing in common. As a result of all three incidents, the sensitive data is accessed by an unauthorized threat actor. Industries most vulnerable to data breaches Some industry sectors usually see more significant cases of private data violations than others. This is determined by the type and volume of the personal information organizations of these sectors store. In 2024 the financial services, healthcare, and professional services were the three industry sectors that recorded most data breaches. Overall, the number of healthcare data breaches in some industry sectors in the United States has gradually increased within the past few years. However, some sectors saw decrease. Largest data exposures worldwide In 2020, an adult streaming website, CAM4, experienced a leakage of nearly 11 billion records. This, by far, is the most extensive reported data leakage. This case, though, is unique because cyber security researchers found the vulnerability before the cyber criminals. The second-largest data breach is the Yahoo data breach, dating back to 2013. The company first reported about one billion exposed records, then later, in 2017, came up with an updated number of leaked records, which was three billion. In March 2018, the third biggest data breach happened, involving India’s national identification database Aadhaar. As a result of this incident, over 1.1 billion records were exposed.

India saw a significant jump in cyber crimes reported in 2022 from the previous year. That year, over ****** cyber crime incidents were registered. Karnataka and Telangana accounted for the highest share during the measured period. Uttar Pradesh leads the wayThe northern state of Uttar Pradesh had the highest number of cyber crimes compared to the rest of the country, with over * thousand cases registered with the authorities in 2018 alone. India’s tech state, Karnataka, followed suite that year. A majority of these cases were registered under the IT Act with the motive to defraud, or sexually exploit victims. It's a numbers game It was estimated that in 2017, consumers in India collectively lost over 18 billion U.S. dollars due to cyber crimes. However, these were estimates based only on reported numbers. In a country like India, it is highly likely that the actual figures could be under-reported due to a lack of cyber crime awareness or the mechanisms to classify them. Recent government initiatives such as a dedicated online portal to report cyber crimes could very well be the main factor behind a sudden spike in online crimes from 2017 onwards.