Fraudsters have an upper hand despite all warnings

Indian working in Qatar falls prey to phishing gang

Despite dozens of news reports, advertisements and advisories sent by banks, there are people continuing to fall prey to the tricks of online fraudsters after demonetisation.

An NRI working in Qatar lost `8 lakh in a matter of hours.

Mr Praveen Kumar Thota opened an email supposedly from ICICI Bank and found a brief message and a link that said his bank account needed to be upgraded. A click on the link opened a new tab which looked like the bank’s website.

It asked for his user ID, password, OTP, URN and PIN numbers. He entered his account details. Within hours, his NRI account started getting emptied.

An investigation by Cyberabad Cybercrime police found it was a phishing email. Clicking on the link allowed the cyber criminals to get hold of his password and other details needed to operate his account. Cyberabad police finally traced the threemember gang that stole Mr Kumar’s money.

“Phishing e-mails and websites have a familiar appearance to deceive customers into thinking the sender or website is the bank,” cybercrime inspector Md. Riyazuddin says.

Mostly the criminals send links of non-https websites, through which they can copy the details punched in by the customers.

Experts say another scam is to send malware — short for ‘malicious software — to extract information from the user’s computer when he clicks on the link. “Malware like the Trojan can gather confidential information without your knowledge and transmit it to the criminal," said a city based ethical hacker.