Six held in Noida for using malware to dupe foreigners
What's the story
Six persons were arrested from Noida on Thursday for allegedly using malware to lock up computers of American and Canadian citizens and then demanding money to fix it, police said yesterday. A joint team of police and cyber cell nabbed the accused, who ran a racket under a fake call center named Code Mevan in Sector 2, said Sudha Singh, SP, Noida city.
Information
Accused sent virus on computers through internet pop-ups
The accused have been identified as Prabhat Sinha, Atul Verma, Vijay Sharma, Deepak Tiwari, Suresh Goswami, and Jahazeb Pasha. All of them are IT-experts. While Sinha and Sharma were company's directors, the other four were tasked with sending the virus on computers through internet pop-ups.
Operation
They asked victims to make payment through PayPal gateway
"Once they would get confirmation that the target's computer has hung, the accused would call them up using an international number. They would tell them that they were calling from a software company's customer care service and offered them to fix the problem," Singh said. The accused would ask the people to make payment through online transaction PayPal gateway.
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The gang duped their victims repeatedly following identical procedure
"The gang would ask for a payment from $99 to $600 for fixing the virus. They would tell the victims to save their customer care number for future use. They would again send the virus using pop-ups and dupe the people," the SP said.
Action
Initial probe revealed gang had duped around 500 people: Cops
The gang had also created a website with an American address in the name of a company called Ingeven to convince the people of their authenticity. A cyber cell official said it appears from the initial probe that the gang had duped "around 500 people". Two of the gang's partners are absconding and searches are being carried out to nab them, Singh said.
Information
Laptops, electronic gadgets recovered from the gang's office
Seven laptops, a VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) calling device, other electronic gadgets were seized from the gang's office, the police said. All the accused have been booked under section 420 (fraud) of the IPC and relevant sections of the Information Technology Act, said police.