Pune man duped of Rs 93.5 lakh by cloning Airtel SIM card - how you can ensure it never happens to you

Recently a man posing as a mobile service provider duped a Pune resident of Rs 93.5 lakh under the pretext of ‘updating his SIM card’.

The con artist pretended to work for Airtel and told  complainant that unless he 'updated his sim card' it would become useless. Th

Then to  avoid ‘deactivation’ the caller asked the victim to send an SMS to his caller’s phone number. The detail in the SMS enabled the caller to render the victim’s SIM card useless and then the caller made a new SIM card with the victim’s number which gave him access to the linked bank account.

Later he found out Rs 93.5 lakh had been siphoned from his account.  

What is a SIM card?

A subscriber identification module is an integrated circuit that’s intended to securely store your international mobile subscriber identity (IMSI) and its related key which are used to identify and authenticate mobile telephone devices.

What is SIM cloning?

When a SIM is cloned the process is to make a duplicate SIM.

What you should never do

Remember, no bank employee or phone service provider will ever ask for personal information.

Never send an SMS to an unknown number asking for your details.

Never share details like bank account number, usernames and passwords over a phone call.

Don’t give your SIM card to anyone.

Don’t share any of these – SIM card number, PIN, passwords

Better yet, don’t give your phone to anyone you don’t know and if it’s an emergency, make sure they don’t have it for a long time.