Simmering Threat

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Digital India wave is now being misused to dupe residents off their digital details.

Cyber-criminals are now calling city-based residents, luring them towards making linkage of Aadhaar easier or upgrading the network, but are instead gaining control over their SIM cards.

This process,also known as SIM swapping, allows the criminal to gain access to the phone number of the victim, and hence, have access to one-time passwords,and other authentic details of the victim.

Under the procedure, the criminal calls the victim, claiming to be from a service provider, and cooks up a story to make a fool out of the person.The criminal usually has some data points, which makes the call seem authentic.

He,then directs the victim towards a procedure claiming it to be an upgrade or Aadhaar link, but is actually a way to get access to his phone number.

“What the victim doesn’t realise is that he is initiating a SIM-swap request, not linking Aadhaar. No one has the patience to read the message which clearly states they are initiating the request.They read what they already know,” said Divya Gupta,a city-based telecom expert.

SIM-swap crime has been on the rise across the world in the last two years, and is slowly gaining pace in Jaipur.

Several city-based victims have lost a sum of Rs 3 to 4 lakh due to this crime, said Gajendra Sharma, sub-inspector, Cyber Crime Police Station.

Keeping customers on guard

• A few private banks have started educating their customers on ways to prevent a SIM-swap fraud. They are sending a mail to its internet banking customers last week, detailing tips to safeguard themselves against such frauds.
• Bankers are advising customers to enquire with their mobile operators if they do not have network connectivity and are not receiving calls or text messages for unusually long periods.
• The first the victim will know of a problem is when their mobile stops working and they report it to their provider. In the meantime, their bank account may have been emptied.

Difficult to detect

• Currently SIM swap fraud is quite difficult to detect. Since it is a fairly new type of scam, banks are still trying to find effective ways of identifying when a customer’s mobile number has been fraudulently swapped and ported onto a new device. With fraudsters continuing to exploit this weakness, putting better authentication processes in place is vital. Anyone who uses mobile banking services or notifications is potentially at risk. 

Ploys played by criminals 

There are several ways in which the criminal targets the SIM card number of the victim

• If the criminal receives information that a person has applied for a SIM-port request and steals his mobile number portability code, then the criminal can easily get your SIM issued. The service provider doesn’t verify post MNP number.
• The criminal sometimes takes the advantage of excessive rush at a phone store and applies for a SIM change request, which doesn’t get verified.
• They also use the victim’s company’s letter head to get the SIM changed. The service provider doesn’t ask for a photograph or verifying document after checking the letter head.
• If the criminal gets the information that the victim has issued a new SIM, he will call the person and ask them to forward certain information to 121, which is actually a procedure for SIM swap.
• Criminal targets families under CUG plans, so more accounts can be hacked at the same time.

Reasons for sim swapping

• If a person wants to shift network from 3G to 4G.
• Number is being ported from one state to another, or from one service provider to another.
• Increase in the SIM memory. There is need for more memory to run multiple applications on various networks at the same time — 2G, 3G, and 4G.