Citizens were instructed by Vaishnaw not to pick up the phone or respond to calls coming from unknown numbers. Instead, they should only answer calls coming from known telephone or cell numbers. His comments were made in response to a question regarding how commonplace cyber fraud and spam calls are.
On Friday, Ashwini Vaishnaw, the Minister of Telecom, recommended individuals to avoid answering phone calls from “unknown numbers.” She also emphasised that the steps taken by the ministry had resulted in a significant decrease in the number of spam calls and incidents of cyber fraud.
During a news event, Vaishnaw strongly asked individuals not to pick up the phone or respond to calls coming from unknown numbers. Instead, they should only answer calls coming from known telephone or cell numbers. His comments were made in response to a question regarding how commonplace cyber fraud and spam calls are.
The minister brought attention to the recent launch of the ‘Sanchar Saathi’ portal by his ministry, which was done with the intention of preventing cyber fraud and spam calls. In addition to that, he mentioned that over 40 lakh erroneous SIMs and 41,000 unauthorised “points of sale” agents have been placed on the blacklist. He went on to say that the utilisation of artificial intelligence had been a major contributor to the observed decline in the frequency of such occurrences.
Individuals were warned by Vaishnaw not to pick up the phone or respond to calls from unknown numbers unless they received an identification message from the person who was calling.
Virus reminder
An advice was sent by the national cyber security agency just a week ago, stating that a piece of malware for Android devices known as “Daam” is currently spreading and infecting mobile phones. This virus grants unauthorised access to personal data, including call records, contacts, history, and the camera on the device.
According to the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), the malware is able to circumvent anti-virus software and install ransomware on systems that have been targeted. CERT-In is the agency inside the United States Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Science and Technology that is in charge of protecting cyberspace against phishing, hacking, and other forms of online assault.
According to the agency, the Android botnet is the one responsible for the distribution of the malware, which is primarily located on websites that belong to third parties or programmes that are downloaded from untrusted or unknown sources.
According to the advice, once the malware has been placed on a device, it immediately begins to steal sensitive data and rights, including reading history and bookmarks, terminating background processes, accessing call records, and more. It also attempts to circumvent security measures that have been set on the device.
According to the advisory, ‘Daam’ also has the capability to hack phone call recordings, contacts, camera access, device password modification, screenshot capturing, SMS theft, file downloading/uploading, and transmission from the affected person’s device to the command-and-control (C2) server.