TechTonic: How to stay one step ahead of digital tricksters

Dear customer, your SIM will be blocked in 24 hours. Click here to update your KYC — sounds urgent, right? Many of you panic, click and land on a page that looks exactly like your bank or telecom site. It asks for Aadhaar, bank details, or maybe even an OTP. By the time you sense something is fishy, scammers already have what they need to steal your identity or drain your account. And this isn’t a rare slip-up. In 2024 alone, India logged over 36 lakh cyber fraud complaints, with victims losing a staggering Rs 22,845 crore. Clearly, no one is safe. Students, professionals and even business owners are getting duped because the scams look so convincingly real.