Chandigarh | The Punjab Police on Saturday issued an advisory asking people to remain cautious of scammers, sending links under the garb of joining the Cockroach Janta Party on WhatsApp to hack mobile phones and steal sensitive information, including bank details.
Police officials informed that links inviting people to join the Cockroach Janta Party are currently circulating on WhatsApp.
"This is not a joke, but a big conspiracy to hack your phone and fraudulently withdraw your money. Do not make the mistake of clicking on such fake links. Be alert, be careful!" read a message shared by Ludhiana Police.
A police official in Ludhiana noted that many people have shown enthusiasm for the Cockroach Janta Party, which has gained popularity on social media. However, scammers are exploiting this trend by sending phishing links via WhatsApp, claiming that clicking the link will allow users to join the party.
"It is a phishing link. Clicking it will compromise your phone, giving scammers access to your bank details. They could take out loans in your name and withdraw money from your account," the official stated in a video.
He urged the public not to click on such links and to report any fraudulent activity to the police immediately.
The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) was founded by Boston University student Abhijeet Dipke, who was earlier associated with the Aam Aadmi Party. The outfit garnered over 19 million followers on Instagram since it was founded barely a week ago.
The CJP emerged last week amid controversy regarding remarks attributed to the Chief Justice of India during a court hearing. It quickly gained traction online through memes and political commentary on issues such as unemployment, examination paper leaks, and education.
However, the CJP's account on X was withheld in India, and this action drew criticism from the digital rights group Internet Freedom Foundation, which labelled it a misuse of state power.
Gandhinagar | Cyber police in Gujarat have arrested 13 persons for alleged involvement in as many as 982 cyber crimes reported across India in which victims lost a total of Rs 631.86 crore, an official said on Saturday.
Under 'Operation Mule Hunt 2.0,' these accused were arrested from Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara, Bharuch and Rajkot. With this action, the state's Cyber Centre of Excellence (CCE) busted a major cyber crime network, said Superintendent of Police Rajdeepsinh Zala.
The accused were arrested in connection with four different cases.
More than 200 FIRs were registered across the country in connection with these cyber crimes, SP Zala said.
One of the accused used leaked database available on Telegram groups to obtain bank customer IDs.
He would then obtain OTPs from these customers and hack their accounts. The money would be transferred to his mule accounts.
Another arrested accused similarly used various firms to open mule accounts to commit frauds, Zala said.
The cyber frauds they committed were of different kinds, such as online financial fraud, internet banking-related fraud, UPI-related fraud, investment fraud and deposit fraud, the SP said.
When the details of 45 bank accounts used by the accused for criminal activities were checked on the NCCRP portal, they were found to be involved in 982 cyber fraud complaints filed across the country, including 137 in Maharashtra, 126 in Karnataka, and 77 in Gujarat, police said.
New Delhi | The National Cybercrime Threat Analytics Unit of the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C) has warned of a sophisticated phishing campaign impersonating Apple tech support to target iPhone users whose devices have been lost or stolen, officials said on Saturday.
The I4C, which functions under the Union Home Ministry, said fraudsters posing as Apple Support are sending deceptive messages containing phishing links to exploit the victims' urgency to locate or secure their missing device.
"These messages closely resemble legitimate 'Find My iPhone' or Apple Support notifications and redirect users to counterfeit Apple login pages designed to steal Apple ID credentials and One-Time Passwords (OTP)," the advisory said.
Once compromised, attackers gain unauthorised access to the victims' accounts and remove the linked Apple ID from their stolen device, it said.
"Avoid clicking links received via SMS (especially from international SMS Headers) or unsolicited messages and carefully check the URL before entering credentials," the I4C said.
It urged the users to only rely on Apple's official "Find Devices" service page for such recovery.
