Hackers made use of the chance to generate a related-seeking scam linking Amazon and Big Billion Days occasion.
Amid the continuous crackdown on Chinese apps by the Modi government for allegedly getting prejudicial to India’s national safety, Chinese hackers have attempted to scam millions of Indian e-commerce consumers. According to an investigation by the cybersecurity consider tank registered with Niti Aayog — CyberPeace Foundation, Chinese fraudsters, and hackers from the GuangDong and Henan province in China made use of the annual e-commerce sales by Flipkart to scam e-shoppers. The hackers produced cyber attacks named “Big Billion Days Spin the Lucky Wheel Scam” and “Amazon Big Billion Day Sale” which had been maliciously spread by means of WhatsApp. The attacks targeted customers who had been attempting to win ‘free products’.
“E-commerce scams are not new but what’s more alarming is the covert cyber warfare Chinese entities are launching in India on a repeated basis,” Vineet Kumar, Founder and President, CyberPeace Foundation stated in a statement. While Spin The Lucky Wheel Scam emerged inside days just after Flipkart announced its Big Billion Day Sale, the hackers made use of the chance to generate a related-seeking scam linking Amazon and Flipkart’s Big Billion Days occasion. According to the consider tank, Indian e-commerce shoppers had been sent spurious hyperlinks to click on and participate in a contest exactly where they could win an OPPO F17 Pro (Matte Black, 8 GB RAM, 128 GB Storage) smartphone. “People who were duped into believing that they had won the phone as a prize would be asked to share the link via WhatsApp to their friends and family,” it stated.
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CyberPeace Foundation had deployed open-supply investigative procedures to examine the hyperlinks. What showed up was that all the domain hyperlinks had been registered in China especially Guangdong and Henan province to a enterprise named Fang Xiao Qing. The hackers had registered these domains on Alibaba’s cloud computing platform and had hosted these hyperlinks across Belgium and the US. Moreover, fake photos and comments had been made use of to generate fake accounts on social media platforms to make the contest sound genuine. The URL made use of for the contest redirected to diverse fake websites. The hyperlinks are nevertheless located to be operational.
“The information collected via these scams can be used to undertake more such cyber-attacks especially targeted at internet users in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities where awareness about such scams are low,” added Kumar. India had banned 43 Chinese apps final month, 118 apps in September, and 59 apps in June this year.