Staff Reporter
Guwahati: A new kind of cybercrime is fast turning into a menace, with people defrauded of their money after receiving a WhatsApp message. Experts say artificial intelligence (AI) is being used to perpetrate these cybercrimes on the social media platform.
A voice message on WhatsApp is received from one of the contacts on the phone of a person, asking the recipient to resend an OTP said to have been sent inadvertently from the sender’s WhatsApp account. This is a fake message, as the WhatsApp account of the sender has already been hacked. The recipient of the voice message does not think twice and resends the OTP. As soon as this is done, his or her WhatsApp account is hacked.
The WhatsApp account is then reset and the person concerned has no access to his or her own account. Messages will go from the hacked account to the contacts on the phone. The messages on a particular account reveal the kind of relationship the person has with someone, and close relatives, friends and associates are generally targeted by the hackers, who then send messages from the hacked account asking for money by citing an emergency or something like that. As the amount sought is not too big, the recipient of the message generally complies by paying the amount.
Several such cases have come to light in Guwahati in the past few days. Complaints have been lodged at the cybercrime police station in the city.
A source at the cybercrime police station said the WhatsApp accounts belonged mainly to middle-aged people and generally people who have money in banks, not youths. “A large number of complaints started pouring in from Saturday. The modus operandi is the same in all the cases.”
The source advised recipients of such WhatsApp messages to confirm with a voice call over phone the veracity of the message received from someone if it involves resending of such OTP. Also to file complaints at the cybercrime police station. This will enable the sufferer to regain control over his or her WhatsApp account.
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