Celebrate Valentine’s Day.. But with CAUTION !!! Lovebirds need to be very careful about freebies being offered online this Valentine month. Cyber expert Prashant Sahu has cautioned people from falling victim to Valentine’s Day offers posted by scammers.
Explaining the modus operandi, Sahu said, "Cyber fraudsters are sending messages via WhatsApp regarding Valentine’s Day offers mentioning that Cadbury is giving 5000 gifts, and also deals offered by Amazon (which is fake). The fake offers also mention about discounts offered in Tata Hotels. Lucrative offers like these are galore."
He went on to say to the social media users, "If you receive such fraudulent messages on WhatsApp, then it is advisable to immediately delete them, and in case someone else has forwarded it to you on the group or personally, tell them not to forward such messages. These messages are part of a scam. The ones who sent should also delete. Because the aforementioned companies are not offering any such gifts or freebies. Such scams or cyber crimes are being handled by Chinese fraudsters. What they do is, they will first send a message to the user, when users click on the message, they will be asked very easy questions, and once s/he has given all the answers, fraudsters will ask them to forward the same message in 5-7 groups, and also to a few people personally on their WhatsApp. What happens next is other members of the group also become vulnerable as they click on the message or either forward them to their acquaintances."
"The more the message goes viral, fraudsters devise it a way for data harvesting. They collect all details including a user’s name, address, IP address, etc. Next what happens is they will ask you to load an application on your mobile phone to avail gifts. The one who installs the application on his/her phone gives access to scammers to hack the phone and eventually it is realized that phone is malware or spyware affected. At times, mobile phone even stops working. All the data stored in phone will vanish or is either extracted. It is better to avoid such circumstances and therefore users should not click on any suspicious links and also ask others to do the same," advised Sahu.
"Similar fake offers were circulating last year before Valentine’s Day. We had created an awareness campaign then. A lot of people had become victims of the fraud, lost all data including those saved in gallery. So be aware and stay alert," the cyber expert warned.