Cyber Fraud Mitigation Centre (CFMC) under the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination

The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) is working on the formation of a new wing called the Cyber Fraud Mitigation Centre (CFMC) under the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination (I4C) that will exclusively deal with tackling cyber financial frauds more efficiently, sources said on Wednesday, April 25th, 2024.

The goal of this programme is to safeguard victims' funds by immediately resolving fraudulent activities. The CFMC will bring together different government agencies, banks, telecom service providers, IT intermediaries, and social media businesses that deal with these kinds of crimes.

Because these organisations now operate separately, there may be delays in the resolution of fraud cases because of the time needed for electronic communications.

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Image from Times of India

Various parties concerned with preventing financial fraud would operate from one place, sitting at one address, a senior official told News18. All government authorities, banks, telecom service providers, IT intermediaries, and social media businesses that deal with online fraud already operate out of offices. As a result, they communicate with one another electronically, which slows down the process of stopping financial crime or transactions.

“To successfully prevent and mitigate cyber-enabled fraud, it was realised that there is an immediate requirement for seamless cooperation among organisations like banks and financial institutions, telecom service providers, IT intermediaries, social media platforms, and law enforcement agencies. The Cyber Fraud Mitigation Centre (CFMC) will fulfil this requirement as all will be working together, which will end delays. The project will be kickstarted within 100 days of the new Narendra Modi-led government,” the official said.

Not all banks have consented to deploy their representatives with the CFMC due to the need to integrate bank databases, but the main ones have, according to the sources.

Giving details about the new initiative, MHA sources said, that according to the current system, all the agencies work from their offices and communicate electronically. “This arrangement has its limitations in achieving the necessary coordination required for stopping the money siphoned off by cyber criminals in cyber financial fraud. Effective coordination can be achieved by establishing the Cyber Fraud Mitigation Centre (CFMC) and by co-locating representatives of the said organisations,” the sources said.

The I4C is currently developing the Citizen Financial Cyber Frauds Reporting and Management System (CFCFRMS) as a component of the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal (NCRP). They added that the system can act immediately upon citizen complaints of financial cyber fraud to stop money from moving from the victim's account to the fraudster's account and to share information about online fraud in almost real-time.

Currently, agencies may save around 11% of the fraud amount; once this facility is operational, agencies anticipate saving between 50% and 60% of the money that is embezzled from the public. According to reports, it will also enable victims to get their money back more quickly than it does now.

“The national cybercrime helpline number ‘1930’ has been operationalised in all states/UTs for immediate reporting of financial cyber fraud across the country. Cyber-enabled financial fraud forms a large component of cybercrimes reported worldwide. The CFCFRMS has successfully put a ‘lien mark’ of Rs 1,434.27 crore, belonging to 5,25,906 victims. Importantly, after the setup of the new centre, agencies in real-time will save the money within a few minutes of a case being reported,” said another official aware of the development.

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