Cyber crime in the city has seen a steady rise with the police now getting 10 to 15 complaints of online fraud on a daily basis.
At a cyber crime awareness programme, City Police Commissioner A.K. Viswanthan said, “As far as Chennai is concerned, we receive a high number of complaints from people who share one-time passwords with unknown persons over mobile phones.”
Fraudsters sitting in faraway places, pretending to be bank officials, call over the cellphone and persuade people to share PIN numbers, one-time passwords and so on. Once they get the PIN or OTP, the caller swindles money, he said, while analysing the trend of cyber crimes.
Another technique deployed by fraudsters is to use e-mails that proclaim “you won a lottery of a million dollars or offer a huge loan or job offer in foreign countries.” In this, the victims are coerced into sharing details through e-mail and deposit a registration fee, commission or service charge for the “services” offered, police said.
Yet another form of fraud happens via online matrimonial sites. Claiming to be working abroad, fraudsters registered on matrimonial sites “offer” expensive gifts to prospective brides and swindle money in the name of customs tax, service tax, transaction tax and so on.
Online shopping perils
Similarly, police and experts warn netizens not to click on unnecessary links shared via Facebook, WhatsApp and e-mails as personal information can be stolen. Listing a few other frauds over cyber space, they said a few persons indulged in frauds on online shopping portals as well. Fraudsters normally put up advertisements for sale of used materials and entice prospective buyers to pay an advance. After receiving the money, they remove the ad and disappear with the money.
The Cyber Crime Cell had to recently deal with a so-called “man in the middle attack.” Around 10 cases have been registered so far. In this kind of fraud, an attacker plants malware on a target network and obtains illegitimate access to corporate e-mail accounts. The fraudster then alters the communication to siphon payments into his account, police said.
5,700 cases in five years
In the last five years, over 5,703 people have approached the Cyber Crime Cell of the city police to complain about cyber crimes.
Professor V. Kamakodi of IIT-Madras said, “People should be more careful on a daily basis even while answering phone calls and reading text messages, visiting websites and downloading content. It is possible to reduce 90-95% of cases by creating awareness.”
“Most of these attacks/crimes happen because the systems could be easily compromised owing to negligence or lack of knowledge of information security on the part of individual users while accessing the Internet or sharing data with others,” said I.L. Narasimha Rao, project manager, Centre for Development of Advanced Computing.