The Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPRD) has warned users of different scams perpetrated through messaging platform WhatsApp.
The police think tank under the Union Ministry of Home Affairs while listing “do’s and don’ts” said in a note published on its website that the social media intermediary has been informed about the “data-breach acts” and numerous government bodies and Ministry officials are already working on it.
India is one of the largest markets of WhatsApp with more than 400 million users.
One of the vulnerabilities flagged by BPRD relates to the “screen share” feature introduced by the platform recently. It said that scammers impersonate officials from banks, financial institutions, government bodies, etc. “On successfully convincing the victim to share the screen, the scammers surreptitiously install malicious App/software to get their sensitive information like bank details, passwords and even access their banking services,” it said.
BPRD said that numerous frauds were witnessed where scammers get victim’s screen access fraudulently and commit illicit activities and such cases are registered in vast numbers.
According to Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), from April 1, 2021-December 31, 2023, ₹10,319 crore has been lost to cyber frauds, the officer said. In 2023, around 15.5 lakh cyber crime complaints were received, up from 26,049 such complaints in 2019. In the past five years, 31 lakh cyber crime complaints were received and First Information Report (FIR) was filed in 66,000 cases.
Scammers on WhatsApp are quite active in committing frauds. Such acts may commence with missed calls on WhatsApp, messages offering jobs or business opportunities, or a video call/weblink to follow. All such acts aim to menace the victim and lead them to severe situations, costing them huge amount of money, the BPRD said.
It said that hackers are using code-scripted bots to find active users and target them for various cyber threats. “Mostly, such numbers start with +254, +84, +63, +1(218) and others. These are country codes and belong to [numbers of] Vietnam, Kenya, Ethiopia and Malaysian origin,” BPRD said.
The note said that numerous users reported that they received messages from different numbers, where the sender claimed to be a trading expert and guaranteed profits. “They provide some unauthorised Android applications [not available on Google Play Store]” through which the user can invest and exponentially increase their trading profit. In the initial phase, they provide some petty profits to gain user faith “and when he invests big amounts, the hackers just terminate their contact numbers and go off [the radar],” the police think tank said.
It asked users to not respond to suspicious messages claiming to offer jobs and financial benefits and suggested that calls and messages from unknown numbers should not be answered. It asked users to not only ignore the messages but also to report and block such suspicious numbers that will help to fasten the process of identifying such fraudulent numbers.
