List of phone numbers used by fraudsters ready

Tribune News Service

Shimla, May 26

The cyber wing of the police has prepared a list of 382 telephone numbers used by fraudsters to dupe persons.

These numbers are operating in other states and the list has been sent to the CID and DGPs of Uttarakhand, West Bengal, Haryana, Maharashtra, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Delhi and Andaman-Nicobar, said DSP (cyber crime cell) Narvir Singh Thakur.

The list had also been provided to nodal officers of service providers for taking immediate action, he said, adding that the fraudsters were also extracting data from victims through WhatsApp and Facebook by creating fake accounts. Urging people to remain alert and not to provide the details of their bank accounts, Thakur said, “The only way to protect yourself from cyber crime is to have awareness about cyber crime.”

Data theft was a serious problem worldwide due to expansion of internet and outreach of social media but it was seen that awareness about cyber crime was quite less in India as compared to developed countries. Several companies were collecting data and the risk of it being misused was very high, he added.

Thakur said an analysis of complaints received in cyber police station, Shimla, revealed that fraudsters selected their targets on the Facebook and send friend requests through fake accounts and use virtual numbers of other countries but, in fact, they were operating within the country and when the victims received the calls, they got an impression that call was coming from some foreign country and got misled.