Phishing on rise, police issue advisory

Abhishek Awasthi | TNN | Apr 13, 2020, 07:03 IST

Noida: Cyber police have warned residents from falling prey to online fraudsters whose activities have spiked amidst Covid crisis. People have been asked to double-check demands made by close family members, too, as complaints of social media accounts being hacked have gone up, police said in its advisory issued on Saturday where said fraudsters are stealing money directly from bank accounts.
Baljeet Singh, in-charge of cyber cell, told TOI they have received several complaints over the past two weeks from people being cheated on the pretext of medical emergency, relief fund and ration card registrations. “It has been observed that cyber gangs are actively defrauding people using the surge in mobile usage in the wake of ban on physical movement,” he said.
The users are asked to limit their downloading source to only official application stores as it can contain malware.
“It can be either from your phone manufacturer or operating system app store. Third-party sellers may not be legitimate, it could contain ransomware,” he said.