Mumbai firm loses ₹12 lakh to cyber attack

A private company in Andheri was recently cheated of about ₹12 lakh by cyber fraudsters in a man-in-the-middle (MIM) attack. In such attacks, fraudsters usually intercept emails or virtual exchanges between two parties and cheat one of them by impersonating the other’s email ID.

The complainant in the case is 80-year-old Firoz Doctor, a partner in the company, which has been importing firefighting systems from a Germany-based firm for the past nine years. The systems are then sold to Indian Railways, airport authorities, coal mines, among others.

According to the Saki Naka police, the Andheri company had in August 2018 received an email from the German firm, requesting them to make payments for previous orders to a new bank account as some auditing work was underway. On October 16, the Andheri company made a payment of ₹11.89 lakh (in Euro) to the new bank account.

However, on October 21, 2018, the Andheri firm got an email from the German company, stating they did not receive the payment, said an officer. When the complainant firm informed them about the email, requesting change of bank account, the German firm told them the account did not belong to them. “The Andheri firm then realised some fraudsters had created a duplicate email ID, similar to that of the German firm, by replacing one letter in it, and cheated them,” said another officer.

After obtaining details of the beneficiary’s bank account, the Andheri firm approached the police on Tuesday, and a case was lodged against the unidentified fraudsters. “Technical assistance from the cyber police would also be taken,” the officer said.