The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has registered more than 5,500 complaints against cybercrime in 2018.
The complainants included both men and women while the complaints were mostly about cyberbullying, cyber harassment, cyberstalking, financial fraud, digital piracy, intellectual property rights violations, and electronic extortion and terrorism.
ALSO READ
FIA Reports Massive Increase in Complaints of Online Theft From Bank Accounts
According to a media report, not only women but also men are a victim of online harassment and this is contributing to the psychological issues in the youth.
Moreover, this year has seen a massive increase in the incidents of online blackmailing and bank frauds. Bank frauds involved a common practice of tricking people into divulging their bank account details on phone calls.
These frauds resulted in significant monetary losses. Apart from the bank frauds, reports of hackers stealing personal information via the internet and then using that information against the victims were also received by FIA.
The report also revealed that children had become most vulnerable as they were not aware of the potential harms and lacked any training as to how to protect themselves on the internet.
ALSO READ
First Woman Arrested Under Cybercrime Act After Blackmailing Man
FIA claims to have established the National Response Centers (NRC) to empower women to report the incidents of online harassment without any trouble.
The NRCs are present only in Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, Peshawar, Rawalpindi, and Quetta, leaving the women of remote areas deprived of any such opportunity.
Pointing out another shortcoming in the FIA’s online reporting process, the report states that the process of submitting the online complaint is slow, as it takes 30 to 60 days to get processed. That is why many women fail at filing any complaint at all.
According to Assistant Director at FIA Cybercrime Wing Lahore, the agency has initiated 2500 of the received complaints while saying that sometimes the complaints are withdrawn after a settlement between the parties.
Via: PakistanToday
