CHENNAI: When R Shankar (55), assistant pressman at the Express Group got a call from an unknown number on Monday, he did not know that would lead to him losing 25 percent of his monthly earnings in one fell swoop.
“We are calling from the Indian Overseas Bank,” said a lady at the other end, “Your card has been blocked. We will issue you a new card soon, but we need details of any other cards that you have.”
The caller was firm, says Shankar, and gave him a long spiel on card security and how not to give the new card’s details to anyone. Shankar was convinced by what sounded like an authentic call. He readily divulged his debit card’s details.
A day later, he got a message saying that Rs 5,000 had been debited from his IOB account. He also got two messages from the State Bank of India, where he holds another account, that transactions had been initiated on Paytm and Airtel. “I never initiated such transactions.
I panicked and immediately called the number from which the first call came, but no one picked up. I called both banks and they blocked the cards, but IOB told me that there was not anything they could do to get the money back because the transactions had been done from ATM to ATM,” he lamented. With a total monthly income of just Rs 20,000, Shankar is among the millions that can ill afford to lose even a few thousands.
While Shankar rushed to file an FIR, cyber security experts say that it is nigh impossible to track down such frauds. The problem is one that lies at the centre of the cyber security challenge that an economy going digital faces – the easiness with which the less tech-savvy can be conned out of money.
“Social engineering attacks can only be stopped through increasing awareness. This is a simple thing, but we do not yet have enough awareness,” Palaniappan Bala, chief technology officer of cybersecurity firm Arctos Networks said.