CYBER-ATTACKS

Have you ever encountered the following promotion?

"Congratulations! It's our 20th anniversary. We are giving away free smartphones! Avail this offer by answering the questionnaire!!"

Chances are you have. Not only you but almost every social media user have received such messages from either their friends or family. Most of these messages are prevalent and have reached millions, and have been helping millions receive free smartphones!!

 Really?

OF COURSE NOT!!

Not even a single soul has received any product that was displayed, instead, they got their bank account emptied. Literally. Many of these people who went through the process of answering the questionnaire have had their bank account cleaned. 

That is called SCAM, in other words getting cyber-attacked by hackers or scammers (they both are the different sides of the same coin). 

 

Firstly, understand what a Cyber Attack is :

"A cyber attack is an infiltration of your data by hackers, which is either used as Ransom or for gathering your bank account details for achieving the main goal of making money." 

And don't get fooled that the one example I gave is the only type of cyber attack, they are thousands of ways scammers can perform a Cyberattack on you. That can be either by a fake offer message, a fake anti-virus pop up while browsing, clicking ads on websites, downloading virus-infected files, sharing your bank account details in the name of 'securing your account' to scammers when they call you, getting your data stolen by a fake customer care service, and more...it will probably take me hours if not days to list all the types of cyberattacks.

How can these attacks harm you?

These attacks majorly involve accessing your data. Data not only includes your files but your phone number, mail ID, passwords, Wi-Fi passwords, etc.

Hackers use the data that they have accessed to either encrypt your data or use it directly to make transactions from your bank account.

Some of the Cyber attacks are given below : 

 

1.RANSOMWARE

• Ransomware or simply ransom is encrypting your data and to decrypt it you need to pay a ransom

• Encrypting Data means not allowing users to access their files. For accessing this data the user has to pay the hacker money or (in technical terms) the user has to pay a ransom. 

• It happens when a malicious program/software/services (broadly known as ransomware) is running on your device, which you may have installed while browsing or have plugged in an infected device or opened a malicious mail.

• This program encrypts your data and a ransomware note is created containing all the details to decrypt your files and how to pay the ransom. 

A Ransomware note looks something like this :

• The encrypted files are encrypted using strong extensions like .vvoa in front of your original files :

• Even if you rename and try removing the extension you still won't be able to access it. 

2.Fake WhatsApp and Email promotions 

• In this case the scammer/hacker spreads fake promotions which involve free items or unspeakable offers. 

• As greed is one of humans' prominent nature, people click on the link and go to the official-looking website and give the required details or answer some questions. 

• After which they are required to fill in their personal information and phone number

• Now, remember these messages need to be vastly spread to increase the success rate of a successful scam. Hence, you will also be required to share this link on various platforms. 

• Lastly, they will call you, you will most likely receive it, and the moment you receive it, they have access to your mobile and if any net banking applications are installed, the scammers will immediately use it to empty your bank account.
  

One of the recent such scam was a fake flipkart 15th anniversary offer. Its message looked like this :

It was very much prevalent on WhatsApp, I received many such messages.

3.Fake Customer care call in the name of a fake Virus infection popup (Adware)

• Whenever you are browsing the internet, there is a chance that you might encounter something like this:
  

 

• These are just ads! Yes, these are just popups and not a true and legit warning. 

• This scam is initiated when the user calls on the number fearing a fake virus warning.

• The scammers will pick the call and will ask you to install a certain software so that the scammer can view your screen, but it's all wrong that the app allows the scammer to get a hold of your system.

• From here on there are many ways they can scam you, for example, they will take you to a fake bank website and make you fill out the details for buying the antivirus or they will simply just talk trash about protection and how your system got infected, while they are accessing your super personal data in the background. 

 

4. A fake bank call or a call with no caller 

• "Hello, I am SOMEONE from State Bank of India speaking, we urgently require your bank account details, we need it for re-verification and security of your account." If you ever hear such a statement on a phone call then congratulations! A scammer has successfully called you, now end the call. 

• Many people fall for this, scammers call in the name of the bank and collect your bank account details and your all hard-earned money is gone. Oops.

• A BANK WILL NEVER CALL YOU ON THE PHONE FOR YOUR ACCOUNT DETAILS!!

•  Or have you ever picked up a very safe-looking call with a phone number containing digits like +91 40 665 59900 and there's no one at the end? Hopefully not. 

• In this case, the scammers will automate a call on your number and the moment you pick it up, they will start accessing all your data, immediately. So end the call, turn on the airplane mode, or switch off your mobile and leave it for a few.

 

The above-mentioned cases are the most prevalent ones right now, millions of people lose money, so prevention is required and also the necessary actions to be taken if you are in such situations are to be well known by everone.

All this will be discussed in the next blog of Cyberattack & security, which is Cyber Security.