In what seems to be the first of its crime detected in the cyber history, hackers are seen planting cyber crime evidence on computers of innocent online users who aren’t aware of the activity taking place in the background.
Interestingly, though the online user has no link with the crime, it was found that some of them were arrested by the law enforcement because the available evidence was terming them as guilty.
A report published by Sentinel One states that a hacking group named “Modified Elephant” was seen carrying out such criminal activities since 2012 and has started the game of planting criminal evidence on devices of innocent online users.
As of now, evidence mentioned in the report clearly points out the fact that the crime is restricted to India, where some activists and lawyers have fallen prey to the cyber fraud.
Modified Elephant is a hacking group that offers Remote Access Trojans (RATs) to those interested in surveillance crimes. It has offered tools to many agencies that have the potential to deliver malware, siphon data to conduct phishing crimes via key loggers.
The modus operandi is simple: track down an individual, plant the malware, conduct espionage for long term and then frame the victim somehow into a cyber fraud.
Security researchers Tom Hegel and Juan Andres Guerrero-Saade included in their Sentinel One report some targets linked to 2018 Bhima Koregaon Violence were framed into a cyber crime/s, forcing the law enforcement to arrest them and prosecute.
Then how to keep such cyber crimes at bay?
Never revealing your online passwords to anyone, by crafting strong passwords that are a mixture of alpha-numeric characters tucked with special characters, using an anti-malware solution on a device and switching off your PC when not using instead of keeping it in sleep-mode; can help avoid such cyber troubles.
