Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPI(M) Rajya Sabha member John Brittas wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday urging him to take cognizance of the growing menace of cyber financial frauds exploiting the Aadhaar Enabled Payment System (AePS).
Brittas said that the victims of such cyber crimes are usually “innocent individuals” and many of them are less educated and vulnerable. He also urged the PM to direct the Finance and Electronics & Information Technology ministries to oversee the matter.
“One of the primary tools employed by these new malefactors in their despicable crimes is the Aadhaar Enabled Payment System (AePS). Though intended as a bank-led model to promote financial inclusion in rural areas using Aadhaar authentication to allow online interoperable financial inclusion transactions, AePS has been deftly exploited to deceive the very people it was designed to assist. While AePS may not enjoy the same level of popularity as Unified Payments Interface (UPI), it is still pertinent to note that an average cash withdrawal of around 1000 crores is being carried out using this system every day.”
Brittas also mentioned how experts had highlighted the widespread availability of Aadhaar numbers and other details of people online in various forms and how this became a way for the fraudsters to target the people
“Experts have highlighted the widespread availability of Aadhaar numbers and other details online in various forms, such as scanned copies and digital records. It is discerned from various news reports that the fraudsters exploit this vulnerability by utilising silicon fingerprints and unauthorised biometric devices to gain access to the bank accounts. The system’s inability to distinguish between a genuine live fingerprint and a synthetic silicon fingerprint represents a significant flaw that is being maliciously exploited,” the MP said.
“Furthermore, despite the availability of masked Aadhaar cards and the option to lock Aadhaar cards in recent years, their adoption rate has been disturbingly low, particularly among the less educated segment of the population. Besides, there is growing public concern regarding the alleged leakage of biometric data stored by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). Without swift and decisive action, we can only expect these incidents to escalate further,” he added.
A National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data showed that 52,974 cases of cybercrimes were registered in 2021, an increase of 11.8% as compared to the previous year. No cybercrime data for 2022 has been released by the NCRB as yet.
Separate from the home ministry data over the three years leading up to March 2023, accessed by HT, the NCRB too registered a sharp spike in the number of cybercrimes.
Reports revealed that 2022 had been the worst year so far for India when it comes to cyberattacks. Nearly 1.9 million cyberattacks against the healthcare industry in India were recorded from January to November 2022 while the number of cyber attacks against Indian government agencies doubled in 2022, making it the most targeted country in this sector.
