Cybercrime statistics continue to balloon in India as connectivity increases and police start grappling more fully with the challenges due to malfeasance online. This year is no exception, according to data released by the National Crime Records Bureau for the year 2020 (crime records usually get published at a national level several months after a year has ended). Based on a review of NCRB's historical data by News18, cybercrime reports to the police have jumped almost nine fold since 2013, a significant increase. While the bureau is quick to warn that this data doesn't necessarily translate to more crime (and may just mean that people are getting better about reporting it), the trends captured by the report are interesting to identify. The data shows how fraud is the most commonly recorded crime in Indian cyberspace; the emergence of newly proliferating crimes such as ransomware attacks; the data also reveals deep disparities in the registration of cases against such crimes in different states and union territories. Here are a few extracts from the data. What cybercrime looks like in India In 2020, 44,511 cybercrimes were reported to the police from states, and 44,735 were reported from union territories (Delhi accounts for the largest share among union territories). 47.5% of cases led to charge sheets, according to the statistics. Tampering cases most in KA, UP: "Tampering Computer source documents," prohibited under Section 65 of the Information Technology Act, 2000, was a charge brought most frequently in Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh. Most states had…
