Cyber attack threat to mobiles with fancy numbers

CHENNAI: Having a fancy number for your mobile phone? Beware. You may be a victim of cyber attack and could lose your much loved phone number going by an incident in Chennai.

A 47-year-old man gave his phone to a person who befriended him and took permission to make a call to his brother. Two days later, the victim, P. L. Arunachalam, a resident of Adambakkam realised he was conned and his mobile number blocked and found his fancy number  (94444 94444, which he purchased in 2007 from BSNL) transferred to another private network using mobile portability with fake identity.

The BSNL number based in Chennai was later registered in Andhra Pradesh. Finally top BSNL officials cracked the case. Subsequently, the department of telecommunications (DoT cell) intervened and the sim card was handed back to its original owner on Thursday.  Explaining the case, chief general manager S. M. Kalavathy said the stranger after making a call subsequently sent an SMS request to mobile portability platform seeking a PIN. With the IMEI PIN request and some forged papers he got the number transferred in Andhra Pradesh through a private telecom agent in his name. All these were explained to DoT and they intervened to help our customer. Mobile phone users should remember the basics, do not give your phone to strangers, the CGM added.

“I have no words to thank the BSNL top brass for helping me to get the number back. I broke down to CGM saying my wife was undergoing treatment and have no time to run from pillar to post to get my sim number back. She understood my trauma and helped”, Arunachalam said. “Sim numbers like this, if auctioned will fetch several lakhs and most of them who own fancy numbers are cine stars, politicians and top bureaucrats and just imagine if their numbers are transferred using fake identity”, opines V. Sathiabalan, former telecom advisory committee member who assisted Arunachalam.