Are we not able to catch the hacker and fraud of 7.3 crores even after becoming Digital India?

With Digital India, now thousands of digital fraud and forgery cases are registered in India. In today’s era, digital transactions are being used very fast. Customers use many websites and apps related to Digital transactions. With their help money transactions can be completed. But the cases of its fraud are also increasing, due to which people’s money is sinking. Reserve Bank of India has again alerted the customers. 

The data unleashed by the Reserve Bank of India in march 2022 articulated that in 2021 the digital transaction shows upward trends with 30% which is 760 basis points more than the global growth rate. On the flip side, the country has witnessed a major rise in digital fraud.

In the period April to September, as per the reports of RBI, 4,071 fraud and forgery cases have been registered by the citizens. Meanwhile, the amount of money indulged in these cases was Rs 36,342 crore.

Recently, a shocking fact came to light in which crores of rupees have been forged, it is being told that by the hacker tampering with Razorpay software and tampering with the process, 7.38 crores of rupees have been forged. Also, this information has been recorded in the complaint given by the company to the police.

It is being told that the fraud of Rs 7.38 crore was done by the hacker in three months which came to the fore with 831 failed transactions by rigging the authorization process of the company’s payment gateway. The South East Cyber Crime Police is trying to nab the hacker who rigged the company’s payment gateway.

The theft, in this case, was noticed when the transactions were being audited by the officials of Razorpay Software Private Limited, they found that no receipt has been received for the 7.38 crores which were done in 831 transactions.

Razorpay Software Private Limited provides online transaction services for the convenience of the customers. At the same time, it makes transactions easy by completing the payment in India through credit and debit cards, net banking, and wallet to run the business in a planned manner.

On 16 May, Abhishek Abhinav Anand, head of Legal Dispute and Law Enforcement at Razorpay Software Private Limited complained to South East Cyber Crime Police. Police are trying to trace the hacker based on online transactions. An internal investigation conducted by Razorpay Software Private Limited that an individual or group of persons had ‘tampered or altered with the authorization and authentication process. As a result, fail ‘approvals’ were sent to Razorpay against 831 failed transactions, causing a loss of 7,38,36,192. 

Razorpay shared the report with the officials regarding the failed 831 transactions which elaborated on the date, time, and IP address. According to the statement provided by Razorpay, a spokesperson articulated that Razorpay payment gateway data security is stand on industries standards. During a routine payment process, an unauthorized hacker maliciously accessed the browser to tamper with the authorization data. For some merchant sites that were sung an older version of Razorpay’s integration due to lag in their payment verification process.

Through this incident, the company has audited the platform doing its best to ensure that there is no other system, no merchant data, or frauds, nor with their end-users. The company is ISO 27k, PCI-DSS, and SOC 2 compliant, implementing transaction data security features combined with strong authentication and authorization protocols to protect businesses from potential threats. Razorpay has taken appropriate steps to reduce the problem permanently and eliminate future incidents. The company has already recovered some part of the amount and is actively working with the concerned authorities to process the balance.

Is it a challenge to make digital payments secure due to ongoing fraud with the advent of Digital India?

After the covid-19 pandemic, a new trend has been seen in the world, in which the process of online payment has been included to make trade and exchange easier. But digital secure transactions become a mockery, the data represented by the Reserve Bank of India articulated that mobile charging ports are used to transfer data. Meanwhile, the data unleashed by the National Crime Record Bureau states that there are 2,093 cases registered of online cheating and fraud in 2019 whereas more than 4,000 cases were filed in 2020.

However, under Master Direction on Digital Payment Security Control report issued by the RBI in which there are some guidelines for the customers to keep in mind while using online transactions. Nevertheless, due to not taking care of these things at the time of online transactions by the customers, the values of rigging are recorded. Also, more than 50% of banking frauds are registered in metropolitan cities.

edited and proofread by nikita sharma