Internet usage in India has exceeded half a billion people and was estimated to reach over *** million users in 2019. Mobile phones were the preferred platform to access the internet across the country. Email was the most used feature on the mobile phones by the citizens. The number of mobile email users across the south Asian country was almost ** million in 2013 and was estimated to reach over *** million in 2018.

Cybercrimes

Even though the country had a relatively low percentage of unsolicited spam e-mails as share of the worldwide spam volume, the number of cybercrimes has grown steadily. There were over *** crimes related to email hacking and almost ** data theft crimes in 2017. Bengaluru is regarded as the cyber crime capital of the nation. The high number of cyber crimes could be linked to the fact that the city is also the technology capital of the country. The lone understaffed cybercrime station in the city has caused some issues and concerns due to the large number of reported cases.

Cyber security

The Information Act 2000 is the primary law that deals with cybercrimes in the country. The Ministry of Home Affairs aimed to implement the ‘Cyber-crime prevention against women and children’ scheme to reduce internet crimes against women and children. The country was ranked 23rd in the UN Global Cybersecurity Index in 2017 and aims to make it to the top ten list in the near future.

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.