Fraudulent Email Causes Massive Loss Of Money
It’s incidences like these that make us double our efforts and provide our clientele with the best possible Email Security Services. The recent trouble faced by Chander Mohan Munjal, a lawyer from Chandigarh, who lost a staggering Rs.3.6 Lakhs to cybercrime, felt like a blow to the progress of overall security. Such reports make us acknowledge that security is a long way away from being perfect; and that cybercrime can only be contained if clients and providers work together to fortify all the layers of protection.
1.1 The Case That Transpired
The crime was committed by sending Mr. Chander a fake email that caused worry and panic by stating that the lawyer’s insurance policy was not up to the mark. Mr. Chander Mohan Munjal practices law at the Punjab and Haryana high court.
Around the August of 2019, the lawyer received an email stating that his HDFC policy would be discontinued as he had failed to make the necessary payment for continuance. Shifting from email to more direct communication, the criminals called him up and offered to renew the policy for around Rs2.5 lakh. The calls continued, requesting payments in further instalments until the total amount summed up to Rs.3.58 lakh.
Being suspiscious, Mr. Chander put forth requests for the validity of the claim. He later stated that the fake representatives promptly provided him with forged documents that purported to the fact that he was in fact dealing with HDFC Life Insurance’s zonal manager, Madhuri Kashyap.
After making all the payments and doubting why things were not moving forward with the insurance renewal, he realised that he had been defrauded. He immediately filed a complaint with the police.
On his complaint, a case under Sections 419 (cheating by personation), 420 (cheating), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (using as genuine a forged [document or electronic record]) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code was registered at the Sector 19 police station. Police are working the case and will hopefully get to the bottom of the matter soon.
1.2 An Ardent Request from Logix
The case proceedings make it very clear that the seeds of doubt forming in Mr. Chander’s mind probably saved him from getting duped out of more money. This is a good sign. Warning bells must sound off at the back of your mind if something unusual is demanded of you via email or text messages. But how do you train yourself to reach that stage? How do you behave in such scenarios?
- Read as much as you can about Phishing and Cybercrime against Businesses.
- Employ bulletproof security practices in your organization.
- Use communication channel encryption services like VPN etc. to protect your data packets. (If you’re hunting for services, we invite you to browse through our Add-Ons.)
- Do not hesitate to contact the authorities if you get a ‘sensation’ that something fishy is going on.
- Always cross-verify with the in-charges of the organization which is supposedly asking for payments under unusual circumstances.
As things stand at the moment, we are eager to cast a protective net over as many people and organizations as we can.
Logix Cloud Email Security enables Organisations to combat Advanced Malware (known and unknown Malware), Spear-phishing, Domain Impersonation/ Domain Spoofing, Zero day, Whaling, Ransomware, Crypto ware, Business Email Crime(BEC) attacks with its multi layered , multi-tiered Security approach using the multiple threat intelligence detection & prevention tools.
If you want to discuss your security strength and ways of increasing it, feel free to write to us.