National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal 

National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data registered 52,974 incidents of cyber crimes in 2021. The stats increased by nearly 6 percent in comparison to the previous year. While the data show the severity of the increasing cybercrime rate, what's more, alarming is that this data estimates the stats based on only the reported cases. So the real cyber crime cases incidents would be even more if we consider the under-reported cases.
Cases of cybercrimes are rising every day, the magnitude of digital crimes can be accessed by the fact that every 5th person in the country is falling into scams related to cybercrime.
From a software engineer to an uneducated farmer, every passing day, hundreds of people are there who get swindled. Fraudsters are using new modus operandi and techniques to fool their targets. It takes only a fraction of a second for these cybercriminals to steal your hard-earned money.
With advancing technology, cyber scammers are also following new ways to target people and real money. Some of the common cyber frauds include identity theft, phishing scams, credit card fraud, romance scams, investment fraud, and more.
Let's take a look at 5 common types of cyber fraud that you should be aware of-

Phishing Scams: In such scams, scammers send fake emails, text messages, or make phone calls claiming to be a legitimate organization and trick people to give their sensitive information like usernames, passwords OTP or other.

Identity theft: In identity thefts, scammers steal someone's personal information, like name, address, and social security number, and use it to open accounts, apply for loans or commit other crimes in their name.

Malware: Scammers send malicious link apps which are designed to damage, disrupt, or gain unauthorised access to a computer system and get sensitive information to get financial benefits. Some of the Common types of malware include viruses, worms, Trojan horses, and ransomware.

Job scam: As the name suggests, scammers target people online on the pretext of offering a job and later stealing their money.

Online Shopping Scams: This is one of the most common scams. Cybercriminals set up fake e-commerce websites or advertise fake products on legitimate websites and trick people into making purchases. Through these fake websites, they may also steal credit card details to steal money.
But the problem aggravates when you have made repeated visits to lodge a complaint to the nearest police stations. At times local police refrain from lodging the complaint stating it as a case of cybercrime. So where do you go and how do you register a cyber crime complaint with the police?
Don’t worry, we will help you with easy ways so that you can get your cybercrime complaint registered online without much hassle.
This is how you can lodge an online complaint about cybercrimes
The very first step is to open the website – https://cybercrime.gov.in/

Step 1 – As you open the website, you will see the following prompt on your screen. You can notice, next to the home button tab, there are two other options – Report Women/Child-Related Crime and Report Other Cyber Crime.

Step 2- If a woman or a child is a victim of cybercrime, then you can click this button. Upon clicking, you will find an option to Report anonymously and report & track. If you want to hide your identity then the anonymous option can be chosen else the report and track button should be pressed.

Step 3: In the next window user has to press – The file a complaint and the I Accept button to move forward. Read the conditions and accept them. It is here the portal also tells us — Please contact local police in case of an emergency or for reporting crimes other than cybercrimes. The national police helpline number is 112. The national women's helpline number is 181.

Step 4: Here you create a user id and register your mobile number on which you will receive OTP and fill in your name and state. After successfully logging in to the page, you can easily choose your respective area and register a complaint. Fill in the relevant details about the offense.
Follow similar steps to file a complaint under the “report other cybercrimes” option. Select the appropriate category and sub-category.

Tracking the complaint

Once you have registered the complaint on the website, you will receive a unique number for your reference. Further communication regarding the investigations will be done via a unique number generated. The number can also be used to track the status of the complaint.

Registering complaints via an email

You can also send a mail to [email protected], a hotline created by the Ministry of Women and Child Development to report online bullying and abuse.

There is also a facility for getting the investigation done by getting your identity disclosed. There are Cyber Nodal Officers designated in almost every corner of the country.

A complaint can be registered by emailing to security officers on their respective email id. Full List here: https://cybercrime.gov.in/Webform/Crime_NodalGrivanceList.aspx

A PDF file with the list of email IDs and contact numbers of the nodal officers is available in the Contact Us section on the cybercrime.gov.in website.

Helpline Number

Ministry of Home Affairs has introduced a dedicated toll-free helpline number — 155260.
The number is reachable on a working day 24/7 in most of the states.