#Throwback2019: The year belongs to frauds, malware

#Throwback2019: The year belongs to frauds, malware

PUNE: With the rising importance of data, 2019 witnessed a large number of cyber frauds related to data phishing. Similarly, apart from traditional cybercrime incidents of phishing of debit and credit card details, the year witnessed cyber frauds related to mobile wallets, UPI scams, man-in-the-middle attack, lottery and gift frauds and other similar crimes. 

As per warnings related to cybercrime shared by Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) a large number of malware were used by fraudsters involved in data phishing. The malware included Camscanner, Monokle, Android Rootnik, Agent Smith, ServHelper, SilexIot and others. 

The ‘Silex’ malware was involved in attacking and taking control of the Internet of Things (IoT) devices. ‘Agent Smith’ was known for stealing banking credentials of Android phone users. Similarly, Android Rootnik was known for harvesting victim’s information. As per CERT warnings Camscanner, Monokle and ServHelper were used by fraudsters to steal information.  Following the rise of such malware, cyber experts pointed out the immediate need to have data protection laws in India which is yet to come into implementation. 

Speaking on rise of cybercrime cases in 2019, officials of Cybercrime police station shared that with the changing financial transaction modes they witnessed a rise in mobile wallet and payment application frauds.

As people are unaware of the use of payment applications, people were targeted by fraudsters. Rather than receiving money, people ended up transferring money in fraudsters account. Officials said that people are forced to download payment applications which they have never used and then they are cheated.

Speaking on advance fee frauds, officials said people continued to lose money in advance fee frauds through lottery scam, gift fraud, matrimonial fraud and online shopping fraud. 

This year the frauds which bothered the corporate included ‘man-in-the-middle’ attack in which fraudsters kept an eye on email conversations of corporate using email for their financial transactions. Many cases of such frauds were reported in which corporates ended up losing money after bank details were changed by fraudsters (‘man-in-the-middle’) in their email conversation. 

The cyber issues which also bothered the police included that of addiction of youths to online challenges and gaming as a few incidents of youths addicted to online gaming committing suicide were reported in Pune city and rural areas. 

To tackle the issue of credit and debit card frauds, the city police were successful in helping hundreds of victims losing money in such frauds and police officials were successful in saving crores of rupees of victims who had lost their money in such frauds. Cyber experts pointed out that people will have to keep themselves safe from such data phishing frauds which will continue to rise.

Experts shared that going ahead people will have to secure their network, cloud, data, to keep themselves safe.

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