Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'Prevent cyber crimes' that was published in Newsband

Prevent cyber crimes

A case of net banking fraud had left a customer poorer by nearly ten lakh rupees. Cyber crimes are becoming common affair nowadays. Bank customers are afraid of falling victim to cyber crime. Plastic money and online commerce are indeed convenient but they bring with them the baggage of security concerns.

The banking and payment card industries and enforcement agencies must respond to incidents relating to cyber crime with alacrity. The number of cases of credit card fraud is quite high. The culprit often belongs to a foreign country. There are many cases of Indians having fallen victims to cyber thieves and financial fraudsters who are able to get necessary information about their victims when they use the cards abroad.

Indian police do not have all the resources to address the problem. In Mumbai a special cyber cell has been formed to combat cyber crime.  A number of cases of cyber fraud pour into this cell. This is a good move.  

In the banks, all the codes and keys of the customers should be kept secret. The system should be friendly to the customers when they fall victim to identity theft.

Although the Information Technology Act was amended to incorporate a specific section, 66C, relating to punishment for identity theft, the police are often not receptive to complaints. This is not right. As a confidence-building measure, banks and the payment card industry must come up with an advisory in plain language on good practice, rights of account holders, their liabilities including insurance against theft, and the system of seeking help. Indian law making machinery should learn from their American counterparts in the matter of making and enforcing laws relating to cyber crimes. In the US, insurance compensation for fraud is provided. This facility should be made available in India too.

There should be changes made on the technological side too. New technologies should be incorporated that can make transactions highly personalized. There is an urgent need to strengthen systems against online fraud. When online fraud is reported, bank itself should do investigation - If they check the logs of the database, online transactions and ATM transactions, they can very well ascertain if the complaint is genuine or not. Based on this, Banks can accept the problems and return the money to the rightful owner, instead of making them run from pillar to post.

If this is not done the consumers will lose faith in the system and helpless enforcement agencies and this can prevent progress of the country.