Think before clicking a link; voice on the other side is not always genuine

Pune: If India's digital advancement has simplified financial services for millions it has also encouraged cyber criminals to adopt a more sophisticated approach while picking targets.
Nearly 85% of the complaints lodged across the country in the 2023-2024 financial year pertain to online frauds, cyber experts have said and added that stock market scams, money mules, and social engineering attacks top the chart.
Mumbai resident Krish Ramnani ordered a product from a website and made 40% advance payment. "However, on the day of delivery, the seller asked for another 40%. I paid the money, but the product never arrived. I lost close to Rs1 lakh," he said, adding he later found that the phone numbers mentioned on the website were bogus.
"I received a message with a link that the parcel I had ordered had been wrongly delivered to someone else. And if I wanted a refund then I would have to provide my bank account details," a woman from Pune's Pashan said. As soon as she clicked on the link, she was directed to some cryptic website. And before she could realise what was happening, cyber crooks had hacked into her phone.
Data from the union ministry of finance shows the number of frauds (involving Rs 1 lakh and above) on March 31 stood at 29,082 in which gullible people lost Rs 1,457 crore. This is more than a four-fold rise from the 6,699 crimes involving Rs 277 crore registered in the 2022-23 financial year.
Cyber experts attribute the surge to lack of awareness, people's desire to make quick money without proper verification, and coercion by fraudsters who pose as CBI or police officers.
Three months ago, a retired MNC employee based in Visakhapatnam fell prey to a ‘Fedex courier' scam and was subjected to a ‘digital house arrest'.
"Scammers, posing as CBI and police officers, said my parcel contained narcotics and if I had to clear my name then I would have to deposit 97% of the total money I had in my bank account for scrutiny," he said. He was then asked to turn on his camera on his mobile phone and to sit before it while 'the CBI officers digitally interrogated him for 24 hours'.
"They even threatened to bring in money-laundering charges against me. They had my Aadhaar and bank details and created a panic situation for me," he said, adding he lost Rs85 lakh to fraudsters. Later, he learned that this technique was called ‘digital house arrest'.
Nagpur deputy commissioner of police (crime) Nimit Goyal said in the last six to eight months, there has been a drastic rise in financial frauds with police receiving almost 50 complaints amounting to Rs 35-40 lakh every day.
"Many of these cases happen via international routes such as Telegram, which allow fraudsters' identities to be hidden. In a single cybercrime, there is usually a pan-India dimension, and coordination with law-enforcement agencies in other states is a challenge," he said.
Financial crimes are dynamic, and criminals keep finding new ways to con people, cyber security experts said.
"It is always a cat and mouse game when it comes to identifying the modus operandi. The main target is typically senior citizens who lack technical know-how. It has, in some sense, created a trust deficit in society because people are now scared to click on any kind of link," Nikhil Jois, head of growth at fraud detection platform Bureau, said.
Sujata Seshadrinathan, director of IT and process at Basiz Fund Services, said promises of 20-time returns are unbelievable, "Several people I know have been added to such WhatsApp groups. We do not know where the data is compromised, so it is better to exit those groups."
She further said cryptocurrencies are not regulated and people who have been duped are unaware of govt advisories.
The need of the hour, experts said, is to create a pan-India cybercrime committee that can coordinate with stakeholders in different states to help recovery processes. It is also important to have cooperation with other ASEAN countries from where many of these crimes originate. The Reserve Bank of India has been working closely with the Indian Cyber Crime Control Centre (I4C) under the union ministry of home affairs and multiple other agencies to curb mule accounts and digital frauds.
"India is an economy that has had leapfrogging moments. Our front-end innovation has leapfrogged, but the backend is often archaic or is playing a catch-up game. For fraudsters, small lapses in data privacy and security make their job easy," Jois said.
(With inputs from Shashank Didmishe)