Cyber Crime

Cheap, customised AI tools are making deepfake scams harder to detect, exposing banks, fintechs and consumers to rising fraud risks

Former Rajya Sabha MP Naresh Gujral was allegedly duped of Rs 7.8 crore after scammers impersonated him on an online messaging application and tricked his company's financial staff into transferring funds, police said on Thursday. Naresh Gujral, 78, is the son of the late Inder Kumar Gujral, who served as India's 12th prime minister from 1997 to 1998. An e-FIR in connection with the fraud was filed with the Delhi Police on Tuesday, prompting an investigation. According to police, the fraud occurred between June 12 and June 16. During this period, the scammers created an account on an online messaging platform using Naresh Gujral's display picture to impersonate him. They sent messages instructing one of his employees to transfer funds via Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) to a specified bank account for what appeared to be urgent business-related purposes. Believing the instructions were legitimate, the employee, who had been given financial access by Gujral, executed four separat

Central agencies like I4C and Cert-In, as well as some IT firms, to get limited access for AI model testing and deployment

The Supreme Court on Monday said it would hear next week a suo motu case concerning victims of digital arrest. Digital arrest is a growing form of cybercrime in which fraudsters pose as law enforcement officers, court officials or personnel from government agencies to intimidate victims through audio and video calls. They hold the victims hostage and put pressure on them to pay money. On February 9, the top court described the siphoning of more than Rs 54,000 crore by digital frauds as absolute "robbery or dacoity" and asked the Centre to draft a standard operating procedure (SoP) in consultation with stakeholders like the RBI, banks and the Department of Telecommunications to deal with such cases. On Monday, Attorney General R Venkataramani mentioned the matter before a bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi. The top law officer said he would place a status report in the matter during the day. Contending that things are moving, he urged the bench to take up

Experts have recommended that telecom service providers take greater responsibility in strengthening customer verification processes and extending proactive support to investigative agencies to deal with cyber criminals, officials said on Wednesday. The recommendations were made at the national conference on 'Tackling Cyber-Enabled Frauds and Dismantling the Ecosystem' organised by the CBI and the home ministry's anti-cybercrime unit I4C. The CBI and I4C will send their report and recommendations to the ministry based on the deliberations of the two-day conference on cyber crime that concluded on Wednesday. The use of artificial intelligence in tackling cyber crimes by enhancing investigation capabilities was also discussed during the conference. During the conference, around 375 experts from different fields including law enforcement, banking and finance, cyber security, and telecom, among others presented their views on tackling cyber crimes. "Participants emphasized the need fo

On December 13, the Cyber Crime Police, Hyderabad City, received a complaint from the victim stating that she was trapped under the pretext of a "Digital Arrest"

Uttar Pradesh Parliamentary Affairs Minister Suresh Kumar Khanna on Tuesday told the state Assembly that cyber offences, including the circulation of obscene and offensive content on social media, can attract penalties of up to Rs one crore and imprisonment up to seven years, asserting that the government has put in place a robust mechanism to deal with such cases. Replying to a query during the Question Hour, Khanna said immediate action is taken whenever objectionable, defamatory or criminal content is circulated on social media. He said such cases are reported by district superintendents of police and station house officers to the cyber wing, including the DIG (cyber), through which the objectionable content can be swiftly taken down, even when the servers are located abroad. He said that in matters related to national security, the special secretary (home) has been authorised to take cognisance and initiate appropriate action. "Action is taken strictly in accordance with the ..

DoT's directive requires the app to be visible and functional on first use, even as the minister stresses that activation remains optional.

India is planning to sending a special aircraft to Thailand to repatriate the group, most of whom were victims of the scam operations based in Myanmar's KK Park complex

A new scam is tricking WhatsApp users into screen sharing, giving fraudsters access to bank accounts and wallets. OneCard issues an urgent advisory

International cyber criminals routed Rs 1,455 crore in six months using 89 bank accounts provided to them on commission basis by three men from Surat in Gujarat, police officials said on Friday. This was found out after Kirat Jadwani, Meet Khokhar and Mayur Italia were arrested on May 28 for cheating and forgery after the recovery of 21 debit cards, 30 cheque books and six PAN cards issued to different individuals, Udhna police station inspector SN Desai said. They were arrested after one of their associates was caught with PAN cards and stamps of various firms during a routine vehicle check in Udhna, he said. "We found the trio had opened 165 bank accounts using documents of people who had applied for personal loans. They gave access to these accounts to cyber criminals for crimes such as digital arrest, hawala transfer, task fraud, betting, stock market fraud, online cheating and OTP fraud," said Desai. The three came in contact with cyber criminals based in Cuba, Thailand and ..

It also ordered the constitution of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to investigate a major cyber espionage case involving theft of sensitive drone technology

Officials said that both accused are part of an international fraud gang and were directly involved in planning and carrying out the crime

According to the police, the victim was attempting to book a train ticket from Chennai to Kumbakonam, Tamil Nadu, through a mobile application

This move comes after Raina failed to appear for a scheduled statement recording session on February 18

Police have managed to freeze a sum of Rs 4.65 crore out of Rs 7.5 crore lost by the Mumbai-based owner of a private company in a SIM swap cyber fraud, officials said. In the SIM swap fraud, a form of identity theft, scammers trick the network provider into linking the mobile phone number of their target to a SIM card they have in possession and access to OTPs sent by the bank to the genuine person. It is a form of account takeover where cyber crooks gain access to a victim's phone number. This allows them to assume control over the victim's mobile identity, enabling unauthorised access to personal online accounts linked to the number. The private firm owner was duped for Rs 7.5 crore by cyber fraudsters in suburban Kandivali on Monday, officials said on Tuesday. The scamsters got the access of the company's bank account with the help of SIM swipe and made multiple unauthorised transactions, an official said, adding the money was then transferred to various bank accounts in a span

The IT hub of India faces a strange kind of predicament. Despite increasing cybercrimes in Bengaluru, almost all the hotlines meant for reporting them are either switched off or just keep ringing. Incidentally, according to the Bengaluru City Police website, India's first Cyber Crime Police Station was started in CID, Bengaluru way back in 2001. Then in 2017, according to the information provided in its website, to tackle the growing number of cybercrimes, another cybercrime police station came up in the premises of the Police Commissioner's office in Bengaluru. Eventually, the city got eight such police stations nine, if we include the Bengaluru Rural as well to register and investigate cases related to not only cybercrimes, but also economic and narcotic offences. They are called CEN (Cybercrimes, Economic and Narcotics Offences) Police Stations. All these police stations, in theory, can be accessed round the clock via their hotline. But when PTI called at different times, ove

The victim was offered a part-time job. Eventually, he was asked to pay "fees" under the guise of earning lucrative returns, which never materialised

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has filed a charge sheet against members of a human trafficking gang that was sending Indians to Laos to work in cyber crime sweatshops run by Chinese scammers targeting European and American citizens, officials said on Thursday. The agency filed its charge sheet before a special court on Wednesday against gang members Manjoor Alam alias Guddu, Sahil, Ashish alias Akhil, Pawan Yadav alias Afzal alias Afroz, along with the key conspirator, Kamran Haider alias Zaidi. "NIA investigations have revealed that all five were involved in trafficking vulnerable Indian youth to the Golden Triangle Region in Lao PDR where they were forced to commit cyber scams targeting European and American citizens. They operated through the consultancy firm, Ali International Services, which functioned as a front for human trafficking," an NIA spokesperson said in a statement. According to the agency's investigation, Zaidi facilitated the entire operation and extorted

Under the 'Cyber Commandos' program, the Centre will establish a specialised unit of trained 'Cyber Commandos' across States and Union territories