22-Year-Old Who Cheated Thousands By Sending Fake Bank & Official Emails Arrested In Bengaluru
The app, as the name suggests spoofed the email ID, thus leaving no trace of the sender whatsoever. A malicious user of the app would have to add the target email, subject and the sender email ID could have been any random set of IDs. (this could even be the official ID used by a bank or company)
Cyber attacks from emails are getting more and more common these days. Cybercriminals are getting smarter every day, making it difficult for common folks to know the message they receive from their bank or official business is real or fake.
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And now, the Cyber Cell of Delhi Police has arrested a 22-year old in Bengaluru who created an app that sent such spoofed emails of banks, social media that cheated many with the link in the email.
The app was called ¡®Email Spoofer¡¯ and it has been downloaded more than 100,000 across the world, prominently in India and the USA.
Cyber Cell was receiving several complaints where users had been cheated on through emails that looked like they were sent from banks, matrimonial sites, job searching sites etc. however, when Cyber Cell contacted these companies, they had absolutely no idea about such emails and none were sent from their official accounts. A deeper investigation revealed that it was ¡®Email Spoofer¡¯ that was behind this chaos.
The app, as the name suggests spoofed the email ID, thus leaving no trace of the sender whatsoever. A malicious user of the app would have to add the target email, subject and the sender email ID could have been any random set of IDs. (this could even be the official ID used by some bank or company)
BCCL
This is what made it difficult to differentiate with as any user would trust an email that would be sent from an authorised email ID, but in reality, it was being sent through this app.
The Delhi Cyber Cell tracked the location of the emails to one Rupesh Bhandari -- a native of Uttar Pradesh who was working in Bengaluru.
As per the source cited in the TOI report, ¡°We scanned the laptop of the accused and found around 1.5 lakh emails, but we need to check their content. Some mails even show monetary transactions. However, we are yet to ascertain the money trail. The application could be misused for threatening activities, job applications, suspicious activities and impersonating people.¡±
Delhi Police will soon be issuing an official statement to law enforcement agencies in other countries to warn them about other users currently using the application.
