In view of the rapidly increasing online fraud in India, the government has made major preparations. The Home Ministry has decided to make a foolproof plan in collaboration with SBI Cards and Payment Services and telecom operators. All these stakeholders will stop the cyber attacks on the banking sector through OTP Scam. If sources are to be believed, the solution prepared for this is currently being tested. This solution will identify scams based on the location of the customers’ registered address in the banking system and the location where the OTP is delivered.
Bank fraud of Rs 30 thousand crores
According to the RBI report, in the last financial year 2023, bank frauds worth more than Rs 302.5 billion i.e. Rs 30 thousand crore have been recorded in India. However, this is much lower than Rs 1.3 trillion in FY 2021. Talking about the last decade, from June 1, 2014 to March 31, 2023, 65,017 fraud cases have been reported in Indian banks, due to which Rs 4.69 lakh crore was lost. Cyber criminals are defrauding people through UPI scam, credit card scam, OTP scam, job scam, delivery scam etc.
The solution will work like this
The solution being worked on by the government to curb OTP scams will issue alerts for phishing based on the real-time location of bank account holders. With this, fraud committed from remote locations can be identified. For this solution, partnership has been made with SBI Card and telecom companies. This solution will detect the real time location of the registered mobile number of the account holders. As soon as there is any difference between the location of the customer’s device and the location of receiving the OTP, the customer will immediately receive a phishing alert, due to which cyber fraud can be prevented.
This solution will not only send phishing alerts to customers, but will also work to block the previously sent OTP. Because of this, even if cyber criminals receive OTP for payment, they will not be able to commit fraud. For example, if a customer is in Delhi and his OTP is delivered in Bengaluru, this solution will send an alert and block the OTP. According to the report of Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Center (i4C), cyber criminals have committed OTP fraud of Rs 10,319 crore between April 2021 and December 2023. The location of most of these frauds has been China, Cambodia and Myanmar.