Lt General (Dr) Rajesh Pant, the National Cyber Security Coordinator of India, would be addressing Pursuit 2021, a conference to technologically reduce online financial frauds.

Pursuit 2021 is being organised by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and is likely to be attended by 2,000 delegates, according to a statement from the trade organization.

The Covid-19 pandemic has led to a sharp rise in cybercrimes. A recent assessment of the impact of Covid-19 on cybercrime has shown a significant target shift from individuals and small businesses to major corporations, governments and critical infrastructure.

The two-day virtual conference will deliberate upon issues pertaining to cybercrimes and emerging technologies leveraged by regulators and enforcement agencies to have an edge over the cyber criminals.

Speaking on the rising number of cybercrimes, India’s First Cyber Security Coordinator
Dr Gulshan Rai, who is also a speaker at the event, said: “With penetration of digitalisation, application of technology and use of digital platforms for online applications in our day-to-day life, the misuse of technology has also increased.

“Adversaries are exploiting glitches in the technology particularly software and stealing data and vital information relating to financial transactions which an individual performs through computing devices. The information so gathered is monetised. Attacks in the financial sector have increased more than 2,000 times during the pandemic period.”

Cybercrimes have turned out to be one of the most challenging aspects for the Indian financial sector today. With a rise in the number of such crimes, the industry stakeholders are increasingly leveraging various technologies to keep certain threats at bay.

Technology is helping in the prevention of financial crime all across the world. Artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) and data analytics are at various stages of technology evolution and are being applied to safeguard infrastructure.

The virtual conference will provide attendees an opportunity to directly hear from the regulators, enforcement agencies, industry experts, CXO of large financial institutions, heads of tech companies, founders of regtech startups, etc., on their perspective and how they are contributing towards the fight against cybercrimes.

The event will see over 50 sessions and workshops and attendees will get a chance to meet a host of regtech and compliance companies from India and overseas.