Social Medias & Cyber - Crimes

How Safe Is Social Media? / Ur Email Account?

Just a few days back I had a wind fall.
I found a mail saying that I could be entrusted with a transfer amounting to crores of rupees, Though I know that it is a fake.
Next I found a mail from R B I ( Reserve Bank Of India ), saying that I am the beneficiary of the above said amount and the amount should be transferred to my account within a week or else the amount would be revert back to the sender’s account.
What I found most astonishing is that the mail had a photo of the RBI governor and very official looking.
This is what made me do small research on the net about the above topic. What I found was that we are very unsafe and that we cannot do anything about these things.

These are the summery of what I found on the net about the cybercrime in India.

·   Data collected by the National Crime Records Bureau shows that in cities like Bangalore, those between

     30 and 45 years of age are involved more in cybercrimes than youngsters.

·   The bureau records suggest that most cyber offences are for illegal gain, eve-teasing and harassment.

·  According to the Assocham-Mahindra SSG report, the number of Cyber Crimes in India may touch a humongous figure of 3,00,000 in 2015, almost double the level of last year.

·   Nearly 13,301 Cyber Crime cases were registered in 2011 Surprisingly, in 2014 the number of cases registered under Cyber Crime laws increased by more than 100% to 1,49,254.

The question about how to control these crimes has already been initiated but do not result into the effective result.  The reality is that Internet criminals are rarely caught.

One reason is that hackers will use one computer in one country to hack another computer in another country.

Another eluding technique used is the changing of the emails, which are involved in virus attacks and “phishing” emails so that a pattern cannot be recognized.

The most preferred destination for sexual crimes is Face Book, where fake identities are created and used for the sexual crimes like fake wedding or other purposes. Though face book is used for this, it is less used for the financial frauds.

Financial frauds are done through gaining your personal information like bank details / credit card details from the information you have put on-line.

The question is how to protect oneself from these crimes?

·        We must basic have basic level awareness about cyber laws & cyber - crimes.

·        Internet users should be cautious, knowledgeable and careful.

·        Use unique passwords, do not give / put any personal information, run anti - virus & spy – software regularly.

·        Do not put or share your personal financial information with any unknown parties before thoroughly checking them.

Another disturbing factor is you can create any type of account and any number of accounts with the social medias, using fake identities. There is no check point on this from the social medias.

Social medias should think of ways to curb this, so that creating a fake account on these sites will be more difficult and will help in reducing the crime rate connected with social medias.  

Be Prude & Be Safe From Cyber Crimes.