Trending Facets of Cyber Crime

Published On Thu 20 Jan 2022 | Published By Cyber Crime Helpline LLP

Cyber crimes have been changing as rapidly as the digital technology. The changes of the different facets of the cyber crimes have been so fast that the complete solution for the earlier types are yet to be established in the normal course as a norm. Commander Sunil Srivastava, Director, Cyber Crime Helpline LLP, Pune during one of the interview with a national reputed newspaper has highlighted the need of the hour to combat such types of threats and the likely future threats in the years to come.

Earlier types of cyber crimes:

Ranging from simple types of ransomwares to social engineering tactics for extraction of the debit and credit cards details to rob the victim’s hard earned money, had flooded the then limited little or limited exposed individuals in the cyber space. Then came the use of application platforms like OLX and many types of evolving digital wallets whose own inbuilt drawbacks were known to the fraudsters and were left for exploitation of the common people. These also involved the aspects of social engineering to convince the masses about the genuineness of the deal of sale or purchase of the items like appliances, furniture, two wheelers and four wheelers, etc and eventually rob them through such apps.

Then the use of reverse payment mechanism became more prevalent wherein after sending a nominal amount of money, to convince people of their assured payment etc and subsequently robbing them of the bank balance has seen many victims sob in their isolation.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many of the victims got jabbed in their arm with the lure of free vaccination and offers. The closure of educational and private institutes also led to online classes and also forced almost everyone to follow the digital payment with ease. This further led the fraudsters to exploit the masses as all online purchases and delivery were now a part of life for all. But still the social engineering continued to remain the factor to convince of the genuineness of the offered services and products.

The Changing facets of cyber crimes

Off late, the use of crafted QR codes for digital payments, UPI links for reverse payments and of course with social engineering tactics, the fraudsters have always been advancing their methodology to continue robbing the victims of all ages and socio economic ranks. The ransomware attacks have been targeting the businesses and robbing them of their profits with complicated versions and till date these attacks are considered as a challenge to save their valuable data from the prying eyes.

Since the pandemic times, the use of internet related crimes have increased high as all offices were closed and almost everyone was connected to the outside world by means of TV, laptops and mobiles whether to work in their respective profession, for entertainment or live on delivery of groceries, etc through online payment means. Many payment apps did surface during the period and before the common people could understand the correct usage, the fraudsters had started exploiting the hard to understand the procedures.

The majority of us all started investing our time on social media platforms for entertainment and interaction with our friends, relatives and colleagues and this further exposed all of us vulnerable to the lurching cyber criminals as their likely prey.

The harassment video calls and threat to share amongst the friends and relatives on the social media has been booming at large. Since the victims have, in most of the cases not done any revelation of any kind, but are threatened to believe that they had been watching the video caller who has been revealing and the entire video would be published on either social media or sent to their known people. They then seek amount from the victims as ransom to keep quiet.

The Future Threats

While the common man is still battling with the ongoing and ever increasing cyber crimes, the research team of Cyber Crime Helpline LLP is pondering on the likely future threats and devising mechanism to technically investigate such threats. Imagine if you get a call from your own bank manager’s mobile expressing to help you. Since you would have saved his/her mobile no. in your handset, with a spoofing methodology, one can exploit the victims without involvement of any social engineering tactics.

In another threat foreseen the Cyber Crime Helpline LLP is reproduction of the vehicle tags emission signatures to fool the toll authorities by just transmitting the trapped RF signals and pass through the toll gate at the cost of stolen signal signatures from victim’s vehicles. Cyber Crime Helpline LLP has already devised solutions to such problems and ready to resolve such dangerous threats in the times to come.

Our Recommendation –

1) Do not share the OTP to the caller even if you happen to know their contact details.

2) Ask the fraudster(s) about their office addresses, more so if the caller is trying to help you find a job, etc.

3) Understand the dangers posed by the social engineering tactics.  

4) Never click on short/long links

5) Do not install unknown apps like Anydesk and QS teamviewer, etc.

6) Make an online cyber complaint on the national portal www.cybercrime.gov.in

7) Call on our helpline number +919595427200 for a free guidance if you so desire.

8) Never express your fear to anyone. Your fear is exploited by the fraudsters to threaten and rob you.