Unless you’re living like a hermit, you’ll know that nowadays everything is connected to everything. Our mobile number is connected to our PAN card, which is connected to our Aadhar card, which is further linked to our bank account, and so on and so forth. And as seen in a Pune man’s case, if you let out information on either one of them, you’re a goner.
According to Hindustan Times, Dinesh Kukreja from Katraj, Pune got a call from a man posing as an Airtel staffer. Vishny Thamhane, inspector of Bharti Vidyapeeth police station said,
“He called saying he is from Airtel and asked the complainant to share information or his SIM card will stop working. He shared the details of his card that was linked to his bank account. The complainant later came to know that Rs 93.5 lakh was transferred from his bank account.”
Apparently, the so-called Airtel staffer called up Kukreja to send him an SMS that he had received. This enabled him to make Kukreja’s SIM card useless. In the meantime, the caller cloned Kukreja’s SIM, thereby giving him access to the linked bank account.
While the details of this fake Airtel caller is yet unknown, a case has been lodged for cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property. Tamhane said,
“No bank employee (or phone service provider) will ask for personal details on a call. People need to stop sharing such information with unknown callers.”
At this point in time, India is trying to move towards a digital future. And in addition to making our onlne security more robust, we should be focusing on our citizen’s digital literacy. Because if that doesn’t happen, no matter how many security protocols and firewalls are set up, people will keep giving away information because they don’t know what it means.