Seven arrested for phishing Rs 23 lakh

JAIPUR: The cyber crime police station on Tuesday arrested seven persons for allegedly phishing Rs 23 lakh from a current account through hacking. Four out of the six accused were already arrested by Raichur (Karnataka) police in a similar case and were brought to Jaipur on production warrant.

According to the police, on October 30, one Anant Kumar Daaga lodged a complaint saying he owns a company Consulting Engineers Group Limited having office at Malviya Nagar industrial area. "He had stated that the current account of the company is at Union Bank of India, Malviya Nagar from which hackers had allegedly phished Rs 23 lakh from their account on November 27," said Rajendra Sharma, deputy superintendent of police, cyber crime police station."We were told that the victim had unregistered one of his mobile numbers from the internet banking on October 25 prior to the act of phishing," Sharma added.

The investigations suggested that the gang members were into similar acts in Kolkata and Raichur (Karnataka). "When it was established that most of the withdrawals of the said money were from Kolkata, we contacted Kolkata police. After a thorough investigations, we have arrested seven persons including four who were brought via production warrant from Raichur jail," said a police officer.

The police have not ruled out the role of one Nigerian citizen who too was involved in this cheating. "With the interrogation of these accused we will also nail down rest others in this connection," the officer said. Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/jaipur/Seven-arrested-for-phishing-Rs-23-lakh/articleshow/45278009.cms

Engineering Student Arrested for Debit Card Fraud in Hyderabad

HYDERABAD:  A final-year engineering student was on Monday arrested by the cyber crime police here for making purchases by obtaining details of other people's debit cards.

B Surya Teja, a final year B-Tech student, had made purchases of at least Rs. 14,210, online and at malls, police said.

CCTV footage at a shopping mall showed the accused making purchases, police said.

Police tracked him down by tracing IP address of a computer used by him to an Internet cafe.

According to police he was already facing three similar cases.

Teja allegedly could memorize the details of debit cards used at ATMs at a glance, and used these details for online shopping. Further probe is on.

Source: http://www.ndtv.com/article/south/engineering-student-arrested-for-debit-card-fraud-in-hyderabad-609811

Bizarre revenge plot in cyber space

HOWRAH: Samik Sarkar, 33, had a penchant for picking up fights and then teaching his 'opponents' a unique lesson. He used to upload their contact details with wrong information. This led to continuous harassment of the 'targets'. But Sarkar's 'innovative' way to 'take revenge' landed him behind bars after the detective department of the Howrah City Police arrested him on Thursday.

On October 17, a doctor from Uluberia lodged a complaint that he was receiving calls from people, seeking treatment for their pets and domesticated animals. The police started an inquiry and came to know that the details of the doctor were listed as a veterinarian on a popular website. By then, the police also received another complaint, this time from a woman who is a dealer of water purifiers.

"The woman complained that somebody had posted her details with that of somebody else's photograph on two separate websites. On one of the sites, she is described as a model on the look out for assignments while on a matrimonial site, the woman is portrayed as somebody looking for a husband. Both sites had her telephone numbers and address due to which she faced severe harassment," a police officer said.

The cyber crime wing then turned to the websites and wanted to know from where these details were uploaded. It took a while before the websites found the IP address from where the details were uploaded. This led the cops to a computer training centre. The machine was the one used by Sarkar, a trainer at the institute. The police collected Sarkar's photograph and showed it to the complainants.

The woman recognized Sarkar and narrated how she had visited the institute where he worked to look for three computer-trained youths to employ in her office. The three youths sent by Sarkar weren't good enough apparently and the woman refused to hire them. There was a spat between Sarkar and the woman after this and he threatened to teach her a lesson. Little did she know what he had in mind.

The doctor also said that he had come across Sarkar once. The doctor was apparently travelling by car when the vehicle scraped against Sarkar's bicycle. Though the doctor apologized, Sarkar allegedly threatened to cause him harm. The doctor then handed over his business card to Sarkar and left the spot. The car had all details, including his mobile numbers and address. After receiving this information, Sarkar was arrested on Thursday from his residence at Chunabhati in the Sankrail police station area.

"It is strange how people will go to any extent to seek revenge. We have arrested Samik Sarkar and charged him under the IT Act," said Jafar Ajmal Kidwai, ADC, Howrah City Police.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata/Bizarre-revenge-plot-in-cyber-space/articleshow/45140588.cms

‘Banker’ cons Navi Mumbai teen into revealing debit card PIN, steals Rs 22k

NAVI MUMBAI: A man, pretending to be a bank official, convinced a 14-yer-old girl to give up her PIN number and then stole Rs 22,500 from her account.

In June, Teja Lawate from Uran got a call from man, who claimed to be the manager of Bank of Maharasthra. He said that her old card had been blocked and, to issue a new card, he needed her old ATM card number, the PIN and other details. "Once she gave it to him, the man transferred Rs22,500 to an account at a bank in Jharkhand," said B K Khade, police sub inspector. Once the Lawate family realized they had been cheated, they contacted the police, who started investigating.

It took the cops four months to trace the details of the account holder.

"The account, to which the money was transferred, belongs to a man named Madan Sau," added Khade.

The cops will send a team to arrest him soon.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/navi-mumbai/Banker-cons-Navi-Mumbai-teen-into-revealing-debit-card-PIN-steals-Rs-22k/articleshow/45050660.cms?

Nerul woman fraudulently withdraws 40,000 using brother-in-law’s cloned debit card, booked

Navi Mumbai: The Nerul police has booked Noorjahan Amjad Khan (26) woman for cheating and forgery on Friday, as she allegedly cloned her brother-in-law's debit card and withdrew Rs 40,000 from his bank account. 

The cyber crime cell of the city police has registered a FIR against the accused. 

According to investigating officer Mohite, the FIR was registered against Noorjahan Khan by Firoze Khan (29), who is her brother-in-law. Firoze Khan is a handicapped person who owns a telephone booth in sector 15, Nerul. He has alleged that his sister-in-law cloned his bank's debit card, appended her signature on the said card and misused it by withdrawing Rs 40,000 from his account. 

"He has alleged that the transaction was carried out between September 29 and 30. The accused woman has not yet been arrested, as we are yet to complete the technicalities that are involved in such cases," Mohite added. 

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/navi-mumbai/Nerul-woman-fraudulently-withdraws-40000-using-brother-in-laws-cloned-debit-card-booked/articleshow/45161682.cms

Maharashtra leads the war against cyber crime.

Maharashtra has been leading in the registration of cases that involved violation of the Information Technology Act and other cyber crime laws in the last three years. The state saw 919 cases filed and 693 persons arrested in the last three years. Officials attributed the high number in the state to greater awareness. "We found that citizens are alert," a senior official said. "They approach the cyber crime cell even if they have a small doubt. Subsequently, we found that most of the cases were serious and helped in detecting cyber crimes. In many cases, even the officials of financial institutions were involved."

Parliament was informed in the ongoing session that the state was followed by Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka at 883 and 716 cyber cases filed, respectively. Andhra Pradesh made 493 arrests and Karnataka 195, far behind the state. "Most of the cases involve tampering of computer service document [Section 65 of the IT Act], loss or damage to computer resource, hacking [Section 66-2 of the IT Act], failure to comply with orders passed by the competent authority under the IT legislation, suppression of facts for obtaining licence for digital signature and forging digital signature [Section 74 of the IT Act) and breach of confidentiality [Section 72 of the IT Act]," the official said.

The state was among the first in the country to take the lead in setting up a special cyber police station as well as an adjudicating officer under the IT Act, said the official. "We found that immediately after the law came into force, special training in cyber laws was imparted to members of the law enforcement agencies and, as a result, there was speedy investigation of cyber crimes," the official said. After appointing the adjudicating authority, who is a principal secretary in the information technology department, it was found that there was speedy disposal of cases filed under the IT Act. "Most of the cases are filed under the Information Technology Act and they are disposed of in a time-bound manner," the official said. "In several cases, leading financial institutions were warned or fined."

News Source:

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/Maharashtra-leads-in-war-against-cyber-crime/articleshow/30579310.cms

Phishing Attack..!

                           

                 
                    Hacking into someone's account doesn't necessarily require high-end programming or complex hacking tools either. In most of the cases the victim himself helps the hacker with the confidential or necessary information to hack into his account.

                     For an Hacker there are many easy ways of getting victim's password, like social engineering, shoulder surfing and the one which I will be explaining today is PHISHING..! 

              The term Phishing can be explained as attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords, and credit card details (and sometimes, indirectly, money) by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. Communications purporting to be from popular social web sites, auction sites, banks, online payment processors or IT administrators are commonly used to lure unsuspecting public. 

              Phishing emails may contain links to websites that are infected with malware. Phishing is typically carried out by email spoofing or instant messaging, and it often directs users to enter details at a fake website whose look and feel are almost identical to the legitimate one. Phishing is an example of social engineering techniques used to deceive users, and exploits the poor usability of current web security technologies. 

              Recent article in Hindustan Times stated that...

           "With 4.08% of the world’s phishing attacks targeting India in 2013, it was the sixth most targeted nation after United States (30.8%), Russia (11.2%), Germany (9.32%), Japan (6.24%) and United Kingdom (5.20%), a report by leading Internet security firm Kaspersky revealed." 

                            So how can we outsmart these hackers? Well, as I said, hackers nowadays are too smart and come out with innovative ideas of stealing data. There are few things that you need to keep in mind while accessing emails.

 

What does a phishing email message look like?

Here is an example of what a phishing scam in an email message might look like.

·                             Spelling and Grammar: If you are supposed to get an email from gmail or facebook or any of the renowned organizations, you wont find even a single spelling or grammar mistake in those emails. Such MNCs have a dedicated team of highly trained professionals to check on quality of the service or notifications given to their customers. If you notice such silly mistakes in an email, it might be a scam. 

·                         Cautiously click on any link in emails: If you see a link in a suspicious email message, don't click on it. Move your mouse on the link but don't click it, check if the address matches the link that was typed in the message. In the example below the link reveals the real web address, as highlighted by the red box here, in the status bar.

Such links not necessarily will navigate you to websites, it might also lead you to .exe files. Such files might install a malicious application or software on your computer.

·          

·                             Pressurize or terrorize you to give information: It is a common practice in phishing emails that the hacker threats you by saying that if you don't respond to this email with the required information your account would be treated as hacked and will not be functional after 24 hours or it will be permanently De-activated or deleted. 

·                             Spoofing company logo and graphics: As you must have seen in the example shown above, how genuine the page looks! It has all the logos and graphics to persuade you to believe that it is an original gmail login page. Apart from the 'Sign In' button all the other links and logos are real and functional!

• Dont forget to have a look at the domain name in the address bar too! The domains used by hackers are pretty deceiving. For example www.microsoft.com might be misinterpreted by:

§                     www.micrsoft.com

§                     www.micosoft.com

§                     www.mircosoft.com

Always keep this in mind...

"No service providers ever ask for your details...

...as they already have it!" 

.

Hope this post was informative and useful to you, if you think so please share and spread it amongst your loved ones so that no one falls prey to an Phishing attack!