As WFH culture has picked up, all because of the never ending COVID-19 pandemic, hackers are seen targeting WhatsApp Work Group in order to get details of users and impersonate the group admins to seek fund transfers by seeking alms through personal messages.
Law enforcement agencies in America and in countries like India are getting complaints from public and private firm employees against frauds that have accounted for millions so far.
Forensic experts investigating such cases have concluded that fraudsters often from countries like Nigeria, Russia and China pose as WhatsApp group admins by using the original admins image as a DP and slowly gain confidence of the members of the group. Then seek fund transfers on the name of family emergency and other reasons. As all this happens within a few hours or a couple of days, victims do not get the time to seek verification and end up falling prey to such hacks.
As the cyber crooks involving in such frauds are highly trained, they do not leave a trace. As they convert the received fund into gift vouchers and sell the same to customers of other countries for a 30% discount.
Although efforts are underway to nab these criminals, their operations often link them to such countries where international laws never apply, nor does the government show any interest in nabbing such criminals when contacted.
Russia has shown a lot of interest in solving such disputes to a certain extent, following by China. But other countries, especially the government of Nigeria, never showed interest in curtailing the crime and lending support to the police of the other nations.
Thus, the only way to curb such crimes is to stay vigilant and entertain no fund transfer requests received via SMS or WhatsApp. Better meet the person in person or contact via a video call and then take a decision to avoid any future troubles.
