Nearly 140 Phishing Incidents Recorded By CERT-In During H1 2021

Close to 140 phishing incidents were observed by CERT-In during the first half of 2021, Parliament was informed on Thursday.

"As per the information reported to and tracked by the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), activities of fraudulent emails, SMS messages and phishing websites pretending to be from legitimate services, are reported luring users to divulge credentials to conduct frauds," Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha.

A total number of 454 and 472 phishing incidents were observed during the year 2018 and 2019, respectively, he added. The minister further said 280 such incidents were observed in 2020, while 138 phishing incidents were observed by CERT-In (Indian Computer Emergency Response Team) in 2021 (up to June).

Chandrasekhar noted that the government has taken a number of measures for reporting and investigation of online frauds. Some of these include the launch of the National Cyber Crime reporting portal to enable the public to report incidents pertaining to all types of cybercrimes with a special focus on cybercrimes against women and children, and CERT-In working in coordination with service providers, regulators and law enforcement agencies (LEAs) to track and disable phishing websites and facilitating the investigation of fraudulent activities.

Besides, CERT-In issues alerts and advisories regarding the latest cyber threats and countermeasures on regular basis to ensure safe usage of digital technologies, the minister said. The cybersecurity agency has issued 60 advisories for data security and mitigating fraudulent activities.

Also, cybersecurity mock drills are conducted regularly to enable the assessment of cybersecurity posture and the preparedness of organisations in government and critical sectors. A total of 53 such drills have so far been conducted by CERT-In, where 479 organisations from different states and sectors such as finance, defence, power, telecom, transport, energy, space and IT/ITeS, among others, participated.

(PTI)