‘Fraudsters deposit money in Indian banks’

MUMBAI: The Mumbai cyber police said a new trend has been observed over the past few years in man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks — the cheated money is being deposited in Indian bank accounts, unlike in the past when the money was deposited in bank accounts abroad.

A cyber police official said, “Prior to 2017, the money stolen by fraudsters in MITM attacks was getting deposited in foreign bank accounts. As per our records, prior to 2017, several crores of money in MITM attacks has been deposited in bank accounts in Poland, Hungary, Portugal, Dubai, China and Malaysia.“

The official added that post 2016 after companies began to smell foul play upon seeing bank accounts being opened in countries in which they did not operate, the attackers started teaming up with Indian nationals. A cyber police official said, “Most MITM cases in 2017 and 2018 have been registered at the police station level.” Earlier, all cybercrime complaints used to be registered with the cyber police. However, now each police station in the city has its own cyber cell, which registers relatively minor complaints, in terms of the money involved. Officialssaidthepolice stations do not maintain statistics of MITM attacks.

Cyber advocate Vicky Shah said, “I have come across multiple cases where cyber criminals are operating from other countries and are teaming up with local fraudsters and vice-versa. This is a new trend. A lot of times during investigations the IP addresses are of other countries but one cannot say for sure if they are operating from the same country or not.”

Cybercrime investigator Ritesh Bhatia said, “It’s also important that all companies hold cybersecurity audits and awareness programmes at regular intervals.”