This distressing occurrence demonstrates one of the more common and rising trends in the world, cyber-criminals recently defrauded an aged couple residing in Srinagar out of their entire Rs 48 lakh savings by conducting a video conference call from an alleged government agent.
Rather than being a straightforward phishing attack via e-mail or SMS text message, the scheme deployed by the criminals involved elaborate psychological manipulation that took advantage of people’s emotional weaknesses and fears by leveraging technology intended for social purposes.
As the world rapidly transitions to becoming a fully digital country, the highest rate of vulnerability to these constant and relentless attacks exists with those on the least secure end of the spectrum.
The criminals posed as law enforcement officials assigned the job of investigating this couple and used the security of the video call to create confusion and insecurity in their lives. Ultimately, they were able to create a sense of urgency in the mind of this couple and in doing so took advantage of their naivety surrounding digital commerce.
The recent events surrounding this couple’s situation serve as a timely reminder to everyone that they can and will be victimised by such people and a clarion call to all citizens, families, policymakers, business owners, and others to address the current gap/exploitation of digital commerce/protection policies and accordingly limit the risk of loss due to cybersecurity.
Fraud now includes sophisticated online impersonations of people with props, backdrops, and bogus documents being shown live. It is simply professional-grade social-engineering.
Elderly individuals, who generally have greater savings than younger people and probably have less familiarity with technology, are often the victim of these crimes. Their isolation and their belief in societal institutions creates vulnerability.
The Cyber Police from law enforcement are investigating the crimes during their current time; however, it is no longer adequate to react; they must be proactive! We need a national strategy to combat the increase in cyber fraud.
To achieve this, banks, telecom companies, and local governments must establish continuous grassroots efforts to educate citizens on digital literacy.
These should be conducted in community centres, religious centres and residential areas, using local languages, to provide exactly what these scams look like.
