KOCHI: Despite several warnings from the banks and police agencies, it seems that people are not taking cyber fraudsters seriously, resulting in more people becoming their easy targets in the state. In a recent case, a Choornikara native lost over Rs 24 lakh to a cyber fraudster who posed as an official of ICICI bank. Ernakulam Rural Cyber Police have registered a case and started a probe into the incident. Station House Officer M B Latheef said that the fraudster used a phishing app to take control of all the bank and financial details of the victim to swindle the money on April 8.
“It was a phishing method adopted by the accused. The accused gave a call to the victim, posing as an official of the bank. He stated that the victim’s account will not function if he did not update his KYC details submitted to the bank. For completing the KYC procedure, the victim received a link similar to one of the banks. When the victim clicked the link, the phishing app was installed on the victim’s mobile phone,” Latheef said.
After the phishing app was installed, the fraudster took control of the mobile phone device. As many as five transactions were made to various bank accounts between 1.15pm and 3.20pm on April 8. Three transactions were through RTGS, and one was via IMPS mode.
The accused also took control of the victim’s credit card and made a purchase of Rs 4.84 lakh at an online store.
“Commonly, the fraudsters use remote access apps available on the app store. However, in this case, a phishing app was specifically made for cheating, which is not available in app stores but circulated through social media. People should always be careful when anyone insists on installing an application for providing any service. The genuineness of the app should be confirmed with the bank before installing it. People should be very careful doing financial transactions online to prevent such cyber frauds,” he said.