Tech-support scammers hit 70% of India users: Microsoft

NEW DELHI: India is a hub of call-centre talent put to criminal use, says Microsoft’s new research report. Its survey of 16,254 adult internet users in 16 nations found that nearly seven out of 10 consumers in India were targeted by a tech-support scammer in the past one year.
The ‘Global Tech Support Scam Research’ showed that India experienced a relatively high scam encounter rate of 69% in 2021, almost similar (70%) to that in 2018. In contrast, there was an overall five-point drop in scam encounters globally with a rate of 59% over the same period.
In India, one in three (31%) of those surveyed continued engaging and eventually lost money, an increase of 17 points as compared with 2018. Millennials (aged 24-37) were the most susceptible, with 58% of those that continued with a scam incurring monetary loss. As much as 73% of men in India who proceeded to interact with a scammer were likely to lose money, the survey said.
Every month, Microsoft receives around 6,500 complaints globally from people who have been the victims of tech-support scams. This is down from 13,000 reports in an average month in prior years.
Posing as executives of a tech major, such as Microsoft or Google, the scammers contact users and create a fear psychosis or convince them to install a software. Once done, it gives the fraudsters illegal ‘remote access’ to their victim’s devices. The scammers then drain the victim’s money.