Phishing attacks are on the rise in India. Cybercriminals are now using new and innovative methods to deceive innocent users by opening a malicious email or clicking on a link that contains malware that could cost users their personal information, including financial losses. .
MicrosoftThe 2021 Global Tech Support Scam Research Report reveals that consumers in India experienced a relatively high scam encounter rate of 69 percent between January 2020 and May 2021. This means that nearly half of the consumers surveyed were tricked into continuing with the scam and 31 percent of those who continued with the scam conversation lost money in 2021, a 17 point increase from 2018.
The report said that seven out of 10 consumers in India were targeted by tech support scammers in the past 12 months. This boom in cybercrime has made it very important for individuals to know how to stay safe, online. Microsoft Security Technical Support offers five ways to avoid falling victim to a scam:
1. Beware of Unsolicited Technical Support: Service providers or companies never make unsolicited phone calls for technical support. If you didn’t reach out to tech support, they wouldn’t call you to provide tech support. Be careful, scammers often create fake caller IDs.
2. Ignore pop-ups with immediate call-to-action: Error messages received from legitimate tech firms never include phone numbers. Browsers such as Microsoft Edge support scam sites using Microsoft Defender SmartScreen.
3. Don’t Pay in Cryptocurrency or Gift Cards: If you’ve requested tech support, they’ll let you know ahead of time if there’s going to be a fee, and that fee will never be in the form of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin or gifts. card.
4. Make sure all apps on your device are valid: Never download software from a third-party website or link in an e-mail. Download software only from official websites, authorized partners, or digital distribution platforms such as the Microsoft Store. On your mobile devices, download only from the official App Store.
5. Protect Personal Information: Legitimate technical support will never ask for your password, Aadhaar number or other personal data. If you have already experienced a tech support scam, uninstall any applications the scammer may have installed on you, run a security scan, reset your device, and change your passwords. If you have made a payment, call your credit card issuer as soon as possible.
.