Hyderabad: Cyber crooks reinvent to cheat Covid-hit

Hyderabad: Cyber fraudsters are on the prowl again with the second wave of corona virus wreaking havoc on people's lives. But this time the cyber crooks have changed their modus operandi and targeted the psychology of persons searching for availability of beds or oxygen cylinders in hospitals and dial them as the fraudsters are going by the perception that a person enquiring about the beds and oxygen cylinders is an easy prey.

Praveen Kumar, an officer from CCS, said cyber fraudsters are always inventing new methods to cheat people and in most of the cases such fraudsters are not from Hyderabad.

He noted, "This time the conmen are clearly targeting the psychology of gullible victims who are searching for availability of beds and oxygen cylinders. The cyber fraudsters create fake websites providing information about the availability of beds and oxygen cylinders and when a person dials on the number the cyber crooks hack the data of the victim and in such a way they are targeting the citizens."

An officer from CCS, on condition of anonymity, noted, "Since the pandemic began the number of cybercrime cases are on the rise and they keep on rising rapidly. Such a trend of cybercrime is clearly evident that the conmen are targeting the psychology of people because they know that if they strike the emotionally broken person then they can get away with the data and money in bank accounts."

"Apart from it, since the lockdown began we got so many complaints about people selling sanitisers, PPE kits and food on fake websites and innocent people being cheated. Moreover, some hackers also gained access to bank accounts with KYC platforms and the QR code cheating through an online reseller website gained momentum.

Many bogus sites with poor credibility cropped up during the pandemic to take advantage of people who had increased their use of digital platforms for searching information about the hospitals and medicines," said the officer.

He added, "Under normal circumstances, the public wouldn't have generally used those sites because the emergency factor would not be present and the ones who are facing health issues would personally visit a hospital and get treated.

The fear of contracting corona virus and to maintain social distance many of them started using the internet to browse information about hospitals and medicines and with the news of shortage of oxygen cylinders the digital presence grew rapidly paving way for cyber fraudsters.

In order to curb the menace of such cybercrime we are regularly conducting awareness amongst the public and the number of workforce in the department has been enhanced to work precisely on cybercrime."