If you are a regular on net banking, then you must be aware of phishing, and if not, you must quickly learn about this latest cyber crime that’s looting many of their peace of mind and bank balance. Since phishing crimes are committed by highly tech savvy criminals of the dark world, it is very difficult to trace them, leaving the victims, and even police at times, helpless. However, the good news is, police forces across the country are now waking up to this sophisticated form of cyber crime and are upskilling themselves to tackle it.
Recently, in Haryana’s Rohtak district, due to the vigilance of cyber crime police, a businessman got back his Rs. 23.50 lakh that cyber criminals had managed to take from his account. However, in this case, the promptness of the businessman also played an important role because he had registered the complaint on time. That is why, it is very important for people to be aware about cyber crimes so that they can seek help from the concerned police department immediately.
Indian Masterminds interacted with 2016-batch IPS officer and Rohtak SP, Udai Singh Meena, and other concerned police officials to get more information about this particular case.
PHISHING CALL
Mr. Meena said that a businessman from Rohtak had received a call on his mobile from an unknown number on 18 September. The caller said that his account has been closed, therefore, he needs to update his PAN card for KYC on a link. As soon as he clicked on the link, a message came from his bank that Rs. 11 lakh had been debited, and after a while, another Rs. 12.50 lakh was debited. In this way, a total of Rs. 23.50 lakh was withdrawn from his account and he got a message that the account balance was no zero. The businessman immediately informed the matter to the cyber crime police station and registered a complaint.
“We immediately got on the job and our team did a fabulous job by retrieving his money,” the officer said.
At the same time, he appeals to the public to not click on any link under the influence of any unknown person and to not share their personal information with anyone. And, in case of any cyber crime, to immediately register a complaint by calling the Cyber Helpline 1930 or register the complaint online at www.cybercrime.gov.in.
“Register the complaint as soon as possible. Apart from this, your complaint can also be registered at Cyber Crime Police Station or Cyber Help Desk at your nearby police station and help can be taken regarding the crime,” he said.
HOW THE CASE WAS CRACKED
Cyber Crime Inpector Kuldeep Singh told Indian Masterminds that upon receiving the complain, they instructed the businessman to call on 1930 immediately. When the cyber crime police officials got a call from the businessman on 1930, they gave some instructions to him to follow. He was asked to save the message that he had received about money deduction. He was also told that he might get a call from some imposter, saying he is a bank officer and wants to know whether he has withdrawn this money or not.
“Actually the cyber criminals’ modus operandi is that they first send these links and then call impersonating as bank officers to tell you that if you have not done any bank transaction, then you should tell them the OTP you got on your mobile, so that they can cancel the transaction right away. As soon as you give them the OTP, the transaction becomes successful and finally your money is deducted. That’s why we warned the businessman in advance so that the money could be freezed. By making the call on 1930, he was able to get it blocked with the help of cyber police,” he said.
The police also told the businessman that if he receives any message or call again, then no information is to be shared. The police suspicion was true: the money was still in the online account. The bank informed them that the amount had been withdrawn from the account, but was still in the online account, and was not yet transferred to any other account. So the investigating officer completed some process in the bank and the entire amount was returned to the account of the businessman.
Mr. Singh gave some suggestions for all to avoid getting trapped in such scams. “Never trust unknown callers. No bank official calls you after the transaction to confirm it and neither does he ask for OTP to know whether you have done the transaction or not. Yes, if you have given a big amount check to someone or there is such a payment, then there is definitely a call for clearance from the bank, but 99 percentof the time, from a landline number. Also, you will notice that most of the fake messages come on weekends so that you cannot approach the bank. You will not get such messages during working hours.”
MODUS OPERANDI
To steal large sums of money from people’s bank accounts, cyber thugs take the help of online accounts. They create an online account in the name of the person from whose account the amount is to be withdrawn. After this, they withdraw the amount from the account of the concerned person and keep it in the online account for some time. The thing is that the fraudsters cannot transfer this amount from the online account to any other account until the OTP is received from the registered mobile number of the real account holder.
So they send a fake message to the person from whose account the money was withdrawn, in which information is given about the withdrawal of money from the account. Then the criminals call the person impersonating as a bank officer and say that this amount has been withdrawn from his account and if he wants to freeze it, then he should give them the OTP, so that his money can be returned to his account again. Only if you give them the OTP, the fraudsters can transfer the money from the online account to a regular account, which is difficult to trace. Otherwise, they can’t.
HARYANA CYBER CRIME NUMBERS
In Haryana,till August this year, as many as 36,996 complaints of cyber crime were received on cyber crime helpline number 1930, portal cybercrime.gov.in, 309 cyber-desks and 29 cyber police stations in the state. As many as 20,484 of them are under process and 15,057 have been disposed of. Cyber Police Stations of state Crime Branch, Panipat and Sonipat were the top three units in disposing of maximum percentage of complaints. The state Crime Branch has decided to speed up online training of over 5,000 willing policemen and officers in cyber crime investigation on the portal of National Cyber crime Training Centre (CyTrain), which has been developed by the Central government to train police personnel on aspects of cyber crime.
