Cyber criminals are inventing new ways of cheating every day. Currently, fraudsters have started cheating people through a malicious app named 'PM Kisan Yojana'. After downloading this app, all the sensitive information of the user reaches the fraudsters.
Cyber criminals are inventing new ways of cheating every day. At present, fraudsters have started cheating people through a malicious app named 'PM Kisan Yojana'. After downloading this app, all the sensitive information of the user reaches the fraudsters. Along with this, they also control the SMS traffic. Through this, they transfer people's money from PhonePe. In many such cases, people come to know about it later.
Tamil Nadu police on Saturday exposed this new method of online fraud and advised people to use only official apps and websites for financial transactions. The police came to know about this app named 'PM Kisan Yojana' while investigating unauthorized debits through PhonePe. This app was circulated through many channels including WhatsApp. People downloaded it thinking it to be an authorized app, after which they kept getting cheated.
The cyber crime branch said that the fraudsters use the intercepted data to register the device on the UPI platform. This makes unauthorized transactions possible. It also collects sensitive personal data such as name, Aadhaar number, PAN and date of birth through a web form. This has put many people in financial and emotional distress, with the fraudsters taking advantage of the trust associated with government schemes and urgency.
For some time now, there have been many incidents of unauthorized bank transactions through UPI applications, especially PhonePe. This month alone, about 7 complaints have been registered in Tamil Nadu through the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal. Victims have reported unexpected deductions from their bank accounts without their knowledge through PhonePe. Investigation has revealed that in all the reported cases, the amount deducted was specifically transferred to Amazon Pay.
Let us tell you that the incidents of cyber crime in India are not decreasing. Scammers are constantly engaged in defrauding people's hard-earned money by finding new tricks. This is the reason why cases of online fraud like digital arrest have increased rapidly. People's bank accounts are emptied in minutes with a phone call or SMS. These scammers commit fraud with people by stealing their personal information through calls or messages.
The government is also taking several steps to prevent such frauds. Seeing the increasing cases of fraud through calls, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has issued an alert to caution people. TRAI has posted on its social media platform X and informed people about a new call spam. In these, people are being asked to shut down the mobile network.
TRAI said that scammers are demanding money from people by threatening to shut down their network. They call users and ask them to pay a huge amount by threatening to shut down their network for breaking the rules. But no such calls are being made by TRAI. If people receive any such call, they should immediately complain about it on the Sanchar Sathi portal.
The rapid increase in cyber crime cases in India is quite worrying. According to the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal (NCRP), about 7.4 lakh complaints of cyber crime have been received in the first quarter of the year 2024. During January to June, Rs 11,269 crore have been defrauded in cyber frauds. In this way, about Rs 60 crore is being defrauded every day. There is a possibility of loss equivalent to 0.7 percent of GDP due to cyber fraud.
According to the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Center, Indians may lose Rs 1.2 lakh crore in cyber fraud next year. Most of this fraud takes place from China and the money collected through fraud is taken out of the country. In the coming year, MULE bank accounts used for illegal transactions will contribute the most to the increase in online financial scams. There is a need to be cautious about this.
