Cyber Crimes are increasing on a per day basis across the country. That is definitely one problem. But if that is not enough, the way these cyber crimes are evolving, you can almost never trust anyone online.
Wondering why?
Just thought of the answer to the question: ‘Can scammers hack my phone‘?
Most of you would rarely think in that direction and find it almost impossible.
But what if we tell you that someone’s phone gets hacked, and suddenly the shares lying in his demat account get transferred to another random demat account? Sounds worrying, right?
This exact case happened with Gopal Krishnan (name changed) from Andhra Pradesh.
He approached our team saying that someone had transferred his shares from his Groww Demat Account without any authorization. Initially, we thought it was just a case of unauthorized securities transfer, but then we asked him some questions, and the answers were horrifying.
Gopal said that on 2 Jan 2025, he installed an app on his android phone. It was a random app, but he started getting a lot of shopping notifications once he installed it.
He immediately uninstalled it.
“Gosh! What is wrong with these spam apps?” he exclaimed.
Then he got busy in his life and used his phone like he normally did. He also logged into his Demat App of Groww and sold off some his shares (holdings).
The next evening, he logged into Groww again. He was in for a shocker.
Gopal had a holding worth ₹8.5 Lakhs in his Demat, none of which was visible anymore. He could not find any share he had purchased.
“Must be an app glitch”, he initially thought but then he called the customer support of Groww.
“Hello, Mam. Is your app going through a glitch?”
“No Sir, its running absolutely fine. How can I help?”
“Mam, I am not able to view my holdings. None of them are visible. Can you please confirm the issue?”, asked Gopal, this time a bit worried.
“Okay, let me check”, said the executive.
Gopal was confused, worried, and a bit in an awkward spot. Where exactly was this conversation going to end up? Everything was in place till yesterday. But the answer he was going to hear was about to shock him to his feet.
“Of course, they are not visible, Gopal Sir. You transferred all those shares to an IndMoney demat account yesterday”.
“Whaaaaaat? I did not transfer anything. You must be looking into someone else’s records. Please check again. There must be something wrong for sure.”, Gopal said it with sweat all over his face. This was January, it was relatively cold. His nervous system was making him sweat in his weather.
“No Sir, we have your confirmation. You validated an OTP that was sent to your registered mobile phone yesterday”.
“But Mam. I did not do anything”, Gopal had no idea what was going on.
This conversation went on for a while.
When Gopal got in touch with us and narrated the story with the “sequence of events”, it was pretty evident.
Gopal had become a victim of “Phone Cloning Scam” and then “Unauthorized Transfer of Shares” scams, both unfortunately at the same time.
Groww was not wrong at its end, in this case.
Gopal’s phone got hacked once he had installed that random app. The problem with these apps is that even if you uninstall these apps, they always leave a virus in your phone. You MUST format your phone to get rid of such viruses.
With this virus in place, the scammer had complete access to his phone’s screen. The in-app notifications, the SMSes, Whatsapp chats, and even the OTP messages that get displayed at the top with the OTP in them were all signs of a phone hacking scam.
All these messages, OTPs, were seen by the scammer.
The scammer, in this case, went on to misuse not the bank account but the demat account of Gopal. The scammer figured out that Gopal has heavy holdings sitting in his demat.
While Gopal logged in, the username and password were visible to the scammer. And as far as the login and the share transfer OTPs are concerned, those were sent to Gopal’s phone,e and since the scammer could actually see everything on Gopal’s mobile phone, those OTPs were accessible as well.
The most absurd part of these scams is that such demat shares or money in the bank accounts are transferred during the later hours of the night. When one can presume that a normal person would be sleeping. An OTP or two would sneak in, and that’s it.
Horrifying, right?
Can we do something about this threatening phone hacking scam?
Yes, definitely, but within timelines. Do not hide these scams from family. At least discuss it with someone close. Reach out to the authorities. Show them everything you’ve got.
Statistically, the wider the time gap between the timing of the scam and reporting it to the authorities, the lower is the chance of getting any recovery as such.
How to Protect Yourself from Phone Hacking Scam?
No doubt, scammers are using increasingly sophisticated methods, some of which are not even detected at first glance. This makes it even more important to stay alert.
Here are some effective ways to protect yourself from falling into scammers’ traps:
- Do not install any random apps from sources other than the Play Store.
- If installed, remove such apps and format your phone. Better check with a professional.
- For people keeping two phones, ideally, the phone where the OTP is received can be different from the phone where all these financial apps are installed.
- Keep two-factor authentication, with fingerprints being one of them. Password and Passcode are the same thing. Avoid that.
- Always follow Fraud Free and A Digital Blogger to stay 10 steps ahead of the scammers.
