₹22,495 crore lost to cyber fraud in India last year

Most attacks start with one ordinary moment.

A link that looks fine. A call that sounds official. An app that asks for one permission too many. CyberAGS explains how these actually work — and exactly what to do instead — without the jargon.

Start with the 5-minute check Read the latest tips

Free to read. No account needed. Written for everyday people, not security teams.

Anatomy of a scam text message A phone showing a fake parcel-delivery text, with three parts flagged: an unknown sender, an invented deadline, and a lookalike web address. +91 78••• 41••• Text message · 2 min ago INDIA POST: Your parcel is held at the sorting facility. Pay the pending ₹28 customs charge within 12 hours or the parcel returns to sender. indiapost-in.delivery-fee.co 1 A sender you don't know India Post writes from a registered sender ID, never a personal number. 2 A deadline you never set Urgency exists to stop you checking. Real charges don't expire in hours. 3 An address that almost fits Read right to left: the real owner is delivery-fee.co — not India Post. ₹28 is the bait. Your card details are the target.
Every part of this message is doing a job.

What AGS stands for

Three things, in the order they usually matter

Knowing the risk. Knowing what to do about it. Then building the handful of habits that keep holding long after the panic passes.

Awareness

Know the trick

Scams and breaches broken down as they happen — how the setup works, what the tell is, and who tends to be targeted.

  • Phishing, vishing and fake job offers
  • UPI, OTP and payment fraud
  • Breaches and what actually leaked

Guidance

Know the next step

Plain walkthroughs for the moments that matter, written so you can follow them while stressed and short on time.

  • Recovering a hacked account
  • Reporting fraud to the right place
  • Cleaning up after a data leak

Security

Keep it that way

The settings and habits worth the effort — set up once, reviewed occasionally, quietly protecting you the rest of the time.

  • Passwords and two-factor done right
  • Backups that actually restore
  • Safer phones, routers and payments

The numbers

This is not a rare event

These are official, reported figures — the ones victims actually filed. Every source below is a government or law-enforcement body, and the real totals are certainly higher.

₹22,495 cr

Lost to cyber fraud in India during 2025. Investment scams alone accounted for more than three-quarters of it.

Ministry of Home Affairs data from the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal, 2025
28.15 lakh

Cybercrime cases reported across India in 2025 — up from 22.68 lakh the year before. Roughly one complaint every eleven seconds.

Ministry of Home Affairs, 2025
$20.9 bn

Reported worldwide to the FBI's complaint centre in 2025, across more than a million reports — about 3,000 every day.

FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center, 2025 Internet Crime Report
₹11,158 cr

Stopped mid-transfer because victims reported fast. Speed is the single biggest factor in getting money back.

Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre, to 30 June 2026

Phishing was the most reported crime of all

Nearly one in five complaints came down to a fake message or a spoofed identity — not a technical break-in. That is precisely why awareness works: the defence is recognising the message, and anyone can learn that.

In India, report financial fraud immediately on the 1930 helpline or at cybercrime.gov.in. The first few hours decide whether the money can still be frozen.

Start here

The 5-minute security check

If you do nothing else on this site, do these five. They block the majority of everyday attacks — and none of them need technical skill.

0 / 5 done

Tick each one as you finish it.

Latest tips

Short reads, published regularly

Awareness, guidance and security — one topic at a time, in a few minutes each.

Awareness

The 30-second check before you click any link

Four things worth looking at in any message — and the one that catches most fakes on its own.

Read the tip → Guidance

Your account was in a breach. Now what?

A calm order of operations for the first hour, and what can safely wait until tomorrow.

Read the tip → Security

Two-factor on the five accounts that matter

Not every login needs it. These five do, and each takes about two minutes to set up.

Read the tip → Awareness

Why "refund" calls always start with an apology

The script is remarkably consistent. Once you've heard it laid out, you can't unhear it.

Read the tip → Guidance

How to report online fraud, step by step

Where to file, what to gather first, and why the first few hours change the outcome.

Read the tip → Security

Your home router is older than your phone

Three settings on the box in the corner that quietly protect every device in the house.

Read the tip →

New tips are added regularly — the full blog is on the way.

Get in touch

Got a message you're not sure about?

Send it over. Questions from readers often become the next tip — and if something's urgent, say so and it moves to the front of the queue.

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