Scamster bypasses OTP: Hyderabad cops

Hyderabad: Thousands of petitions were received by Hyderabad cyber crime regarding an online fraud where the fraudster managed to transfer money into their account or spent it on purchases without accessing the victim’s one-time password (OTP).

Mr D. Prashanth, inspector, Cyber Crime wing of Hyderabad city, stated, “In credit card/debit card frauds, mostly the perpetrators impersonate themselves as a bank official, loan agent and others to lure victims and make them give card details and OTP. Armed with all these details, they then make fraudulent transactions. Here atleast victims know that they have been duped by conmen.  However in some frauds, where it was done without accessing OTP, the victims are completely kept in the dark and clueless until they receive alerts or check their account.”

The investigators state that the debit card and credit card manufactured in foreign countries are prone to these types of attacks.  And as a result, fraudster in foreign countries were able to access the data and siphon off the money from the victim’s bank account.

While explaining the modus operandi, the inspector added, it was very difficult to trace the scamster as they operated from foreign countries. They purchase the data of the card from third party agents who are hired by foreign companies. Most of the card data was stored in the magnetic strip in the form of coding. “Banks in India put a label on it and issue it to the customers. Once the fraudster gets access to the data it will become easy for him make fraudulent transactions as an OTP is not required, “the investigator narrated. Speaking about the precautions to be taken to avoid falling prey to such frauds, Mr D. Prashanth said, “During the time of issue, most banks’ international transactions might be in enabled mode. So the customers should be cautious about it and disable the international transactions. Once the victims realize that money was transferred without their knowledge and they didn’t get any OTP alert, they should act swiftly and approach the respective banks as the international transaction wi
ll take at least seven days to transfer money. It can be averted by alerting the bank officials. Practice safe mobile banking, such as awareness on benefits of registering mobile number with bank for instant alerts.”