Digital Arrest
NITI Aayog definition
Digital arrest is a scam designed to extort money from victims using fear, deceit, and intimidation.
Why rising
- high pressure fear tactic
- ingrained fear of police in indians is exploited
- forced isolation on part of victim
- enabling digital infra eg. UPI allows quick trasfer of ransom
- ambiguous laws, lack of awareness about interrogation protocols make individuals agree to scammer’s words
- personal data bought over darkweb
- lack of strong cyberlaws
What has been done
- Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Center (I4C) by MHA
- National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal
- Financial Cyber Fraud Reporting System
- Cyber Forensic Lab, Delhi
- training through CyTrain (part of I4C) to Judicial Officers on investingating & prosecuting cyber crimes
- Public Awareness Campiagn
- Sanchar Sathi
- Cyber Dost
Cyber Threat
- cyber intelligence firm CloudSEK ranked india as second most cyber attacked nation globally in 2024
- recent breach related to Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant
- foreign state sponsored hybrid warfare campaign, eg. during operation sindoor, pak backed group APT36 targeted indian ministries
Initiatives
- CERT-In frontient ai security advisories & frameworks
- MeitY governance & synthetic content regulations
- National AI Capacity building & exercises
One Nation One Time
- India Standard Time as single reference time for legal, administrative, commercial and official purposes across india
- Legal Metrology IST Rules 2025
- 180d transition period
- coordinated using CSIR-NPL, & ISRO support
- atomic clocks, satellite based systems
- reducing dependence on foreign satellite based timing sources