Today is the Era of Technology in which computers and mobiles are crucial resources for any kind of business as well as for personal individuals. Nowadays people are more dependent on technology, Due to this, some people termed scammers to try to Loot innocent's people hard-earned money. Cybercrime is also known as Computer crime. It is basically defined as a criminal activity that involves two factors that is Computer and Network.

The Cybercrime is Categorized into two major areas. Firstly the attacks against Computer hardware and software in the form of Viruses, network intrusion, and Secondly in the form of Financial loss which includes Fraud, theft of Financial as well as personal information and phishing.

Analysis
Cybercrime is not restricted to computers only, the huge impact of cybercriminal activities on mobile devices have been analyzed in recent years. There is an open market place on the Android platform for various kinds of viruses and malware.

Cybercrime is a threat to the infrastructure of various businesses and governments all around the world. it can also harm the Civilians in many ways. In a recent survey, hundreds of billions of dollars have been stolen out from the global economy due to cybercrime and still, there is no sign of its slowdown. According to the report of Times India, Just 92 days between October 1, 2019, and December 31, 2019, saw criminal activities make away with nearly 128 crores in frauds relating to debit as well as credit cards.

According to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) mostly the higher number of cases of fraud is related to the Debit/ATM card category which saw 11,058 cases involving 94.5 crores. The credit card also reported 6,117 fraud cases with almost 89.7 crores of financial loss to common people.

Cybercrime impacts in certain ways, including:

1. Financial Loss
2. Damage to company reputation
3. Sensitive Data loss
4. Job loss
5. SLA Breaches

Online Types of Fraud

1. Phishing

   is a method that is used by fraudsters to steal personal information. Under this scam, usually, Fraudsters send you emails by name of genuine or reputed company. The main purpose of this is to steal your bank details. These emails usually will have an attached link. If you click on these links, the fake website will open and the fake website will ask you to provide your sensitive information regarding card details, UPI code or OTP code, or any other further details.
    

2. Online shopping Portals

   It is one of the biggest and most common internet frauds. Under this scammers made fake online shopping portals with the intention of cheating and looting the hard-earned money of innocent people. On the website, they usually display attractive products at the cheapest price to attain the attention of the customer. But after all the payment process is done, either the delivered product is fake or the product is not delivered at all. These policies also don't have any kind of refund or return policies and there will be no proper helpline number for the customer. These sites usually don't deal with cash on delivery.
    

3. Lottery fraud

   It is one of the most common frauds all around the world on the internet. Under this Scam, Fraudster sends you email and messages by written you have won a Lottery worth crore. To receive the lottery money, Fraudsters ask you to send some amount of money in the name of tax. Even sometimes they ask you to spend money in the name of registration on fake websites and then try to make a payment on those websites then your sensitive information on bank details will be stolen.
    

4. Work from Home

   It is one of the most serious crimes on the internet world. Under this, Scammers find those people who are desperate to work from home to earn some money for themselves. They use to tell people that they will get a large amount of money by just working a few hours from home. For job-seeking people, they will first ask you to pay some advance money for the registration of the scheme. After the deposit of money, they will cut all the connections from you.
    

5. Matrimonial scams

   In the busy era people also search for their life partner on online portals. But in return, they lose a huge amount of money while finding their life-partners on the matrimonial sites. Fraudsters are basically looking for innocent people by creating fake accounts or fake profiles. Under this, firstly scammers make victims believe them and then they cooked up sad stories to innocent people and ask them for money as a favor.
    

6. OLX Scams

   These kinds of scams are very common these days in which people lost their hard-earned money. Scammers portray their image as any public officer and post their advertisement on the website. They use people sentiments in the name of the public officer to loot. They show fake identity cards to the people and make them believe and after that, they usually ask for the advance payment and promising to deliver the product as soon as possible but after receiving payment they never deliver products and even cut all the connections from the client.
    

7. Social media Scams

   Social media frauds and scams are one of the most popular scams all over the world. Mostly teenagers fall under this scam, In this, scammers try to come close to the common people and then make them fall in love, and after that, they do whatever they want as they ask for a huge amount of money by blackmailing them by posting their private pictures on social media. This scenario comes under cyberbullying and blackmailing.

Protection from Scams

As we discussed various kinds of scams above which is a serious crime for the society there are some of the precautions we can take to prevent yourself from these kinds of scams.

1. Do not share Sensitive Bank details

   This is one of the most common precautions we can take to prevent ourselves from scammers. Usually, scammers ask for the bank or ATM card details by saying this “your card will be blocked in a few days, we have to update your details “In this way, they loot your money. To prevent these kinds of scams you should not share any personal bank or ATM details with anyone. If you have any kind of query regarding the bank account, you must visit the bank personally.
    

2. Do not share OTP

   This is one of the most common mistakes people do by sharing the OTP with someone. The OTP's are made up to protect the Customer's personal details but if you are giving some random person your OTP then that person has easy access to steal your identity as well as money. If anyone asks you for that, tell them to send a proper Email from their official ID by providing complete information regarding the matter.
    

3. Strong Passwords

   People use very weak passwords for their social accounts and websites like (1234) which is easily accessible for the hackers to breach it. Then these hackers steal your identity and account as well and use it for their personal benefit without your knowledge which is completely illegal. We should make our website's password more strong include (upper and lower) alphabets or even the (@#_) symbols.
    

4. Legal Actions

   There are various laws made against cybercrime, scams, and fraud in the IT Act and IPC respectively. For offenses like Hacking, theft, cyberbullying, data theft, illegal code tempering there are some of the major law comes under the Section 66 (Computer-related offences), protect against identity theft (S.66C) or cheating by impersonating online (S.66D), Section 43 (Penalty and Compensation for damage to the computer, computer system, etc) remedies against data theft, hacking, virus attacks and financial frauds under section 46 of IT Act. Cases of forging a credit or debit card or even cloning a mobile SIM with dishonest or fraudulent intent to cause wrongful loss or wrongful gain could be prosecuted under IPC provisions (S.463 to S.471 IPC, as applicable)
   
   

5. Registration of Complaint

   According to NCH, in case of fraud transactions a consumer should lodge a First Information Report (FIR) or make a police complaint or to Cyber Cell if the company is not traceable. To register a complaint with NCH you can call on 1800-11-4000 or 14404, you can also send SMS on

Conclusion
As we discussed above Cybercrime, Scams, and fraud, with the expansion of Technology there are a lot of crimes happening in the internet world. Basically there are major two types of crime that are Hacking and looting money via Scammers, which consist of a serious crime for society. For the precaution, the Government adopted several steps regarding this like the OTP method, CVV number method. The Government also publishes an add on television as well as in newspapers to awake people from these kinds of Scams.

For these frauds, there are certain laws made in the IT Act and Under IPC for the betterment of society. Further, stronger laws have been formulated with respect to the protection of "sensitive personal data" in the hands of the intermediaries and service providers (body corporate) thereby ensuring data protection and privacy.

Written by- Abhinav Manan, B.A L.L.B Hon' at Chandigarh University Gharuan