HYDERABAD: Scammers are at it again. A couple of days ago, social media went viral with posts of citizens receiving missed calls from unknown numbers over WhatsApp. The country codes of the numbers from which these calls were made, showed that they belonged to African and Southeast Asian countries. As these calls have become rampant in the past few days, the Indian government had decided to step in and said that it might send a notice to the Meta-owned messenger app.
While such incidents are not new, hackers develop newer ways to prowl on gullible citizens. Information and awareness regarding data protection, privacy and security are scarce, especially in India, which ranks second in data breach incidents across the world, accounting for 20 per cent of the total in 2022.
Around 2.29 billion records were exposed worldwide in these data breach incidents in 2022. About 1,335 breach data incidents were publicly disclosed between November 2021 and October 2022. Of the 1,335 breaches analysed globally, 143 breaches occurred in Asia Pacific and Japan, resulting in a whopping 68 per cent of total records exposed globally, according to the report by Exposure Management Company Tenable.
Further, the report said that about 33 per cent of the attackers were a result of ransomware, while 17 per cent of cyberattacks were due to unsecured databases in India. Healthcare (11 per cent) and retail (11 per cent) sectors were the most targeted sectors in India, followed by financial services (6 per cent), education (6 per cent), professional and technical services (6 per cent), and public administration (6 per cent).
WhatsApp has around 487 million users in India. Although the chats are end-to-end encrypted, AI-driven technology has managed to break through these encryptions and hamper the security of the citizens. “These calls are carried out using Artificial Intelligence and once your number gets these missed calls, it gets compromised. Quite a few users have complained about the scam and WhatsApp has already started taking action on this.We need to ward off such scams by being alert tech users. We hardly read the ‘terms and conditions’. Similarly, we hardly go to the settings of any app and check on the privacy settings or security settings of apps,” said Moutan Sarkar, a cyber security expert with Tata Consultancy Services in Hyderabad.
Meta-owned WhatsApp recently said it has taken stern action on the growing menace of International scam calls in India, after the government took cognisance of the issue and announced to send a notice to the platform. WhatsApp, in response, has ramped up its artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) systems to bring down such incidents significantly.
“Our new enforcement will reduce the current calling rate by at least 50 per cent and we expect to be able to control the current incidence effectively. We will continue to work relentlessly towards ensuring a safe experience for our users,” a company spokesperson said in a statement.
The spam calls showed country codes of Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Ethiopia, among others. Most of these calls started with +251 (Ethiopia), +62 (Indonesia), +254 (Kenya), +84 (Vietnam), and other countries.
WhatsApp said that international scam calls are a new way that bad actors have recently adopted. By leaving a missed call, they entice users to call or text back, only to be scammed. “We continue to provide several safety tools within WhatsApp like block and report, consistently build user safety education and awareness, as well as, proactively weed out bad-actors from our platform. However, bad actors find different ways to scam users,” the company spokesperson noted.
While incidents such as these remind us of some of the biggest scams country saw last years, such as breach of patients’ health data at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Delhi, a reputed organisation that is entrusted with health data of Prime Ministers and Presidents; it is also possible that the fraudsters of regular nature find new ways to hunt their preys.
KVM Prasad, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) of Hyderabad Commissionerate (Cybercrime) said that some of these calls were also video calls which suggest sextortion cases from within Indian territory. “It is important to remain cautious and not lift calls from unknown numbers,” he said, adding that Hyderabad has not officially reported any such scams so far. He asked public to remain cautious and report these crimes at cybercrime.gov.in
However, the calls received by citizens from other states have led to their devices being compromised. Moutan Sarkar shared some tips on how to prevent oneself from getting scammed. “Keep your WhatsApp Settings very restricted. Profile picture or online status should be shared only with contacts. WhatsApp is coming up with a feature where you have the option to restrict receiving calls only from contacts and prevent random international calls landing in,” she said.
“Besides this, do not be fooled in malls and other places on the lottery and getting discount promotional messages. Do not leave your KFC or Domino’s bills having your phone number around. These are the few places from where your number gets picked. Moreover, report and spread the word. This will help many other fellow users from getting scammed and the application authorities can take immediate action. Awareness is an agent of change,” she concluded.