Beware Of APK Files! Not Only Your Money But Personal Information Also At Stake | FP Photo
Indore (Madhya Pradesh): An IT company employee was duped of Rs 5 lakh after a malicious APK file sent via WhatsApp got automatically downloaded to his mobile phone, an official said on Sunday.
The victim was facing some banking issues and had searched for customer care numbers on Google. Later, he received a call and messages on WhatsApp from an unknown number, along with a malicious APK file.
Dwarkapuri police station in-charge Manish Mishra stated that the victim, who works for an IT company, was seeking a solution to a bank-related query. He searched for the bank’s customer care number on Google and dialled the first result that appeared.
The person on the other end posed as a bank official and warned the victim that his account would be suspended if he did not update his e-KYC immediately. Under this pretext, the fraudster sent an APK file to the victim via WhatsApp.
The victim had the ‘Media Auto-Download’ setting enabled on his WhatsApp. Consequently, the suspicious file was automatically downloaded to his device. Once the file was downloaded, the fraudsters gained remote access to the victim’s mobile phone.
Within minutes, the scammers began withdrawing money in multiple transactions, totalling Rs 5 lakh. Although the victim realised the scam and deleted the chat history shortly afterwards, the money had already been transferred.
The police have registered a case based on the victim’s complaint, and the process of freezing the bank accounts to which the money was transferred has been initiated.
