- Indian police have made raids at 19 locations to target crooks
- Six people have been arrested and many equipment seized
- The operation targeted the elderly Japanese victims
The Indian and Japanese police, with the help of the Microsoft digital crimes unit (DCU), have eliminated a large network of financial fraud and arrested six people suspected of managing the entire operation.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) of India recently led raids in 19 sites across the country and has dismantled a large network which includes technological support patterns.
The network mainly targeted the elderly in Japan (60 years and over) and included two illegal call centers. In addition to arrests, digital and physical infrastructure has been entered, including computers, storage devices, digital video recorders and phones.
Chakra V
The Fightback started with Japan Cybercrime Control Center (JC3), a Japanese non -profit organization dedicated to the fight against cybercrime, which identified the cybercrimin operation which usurped the identity of Microsoft, signaling it to the technology giant.
The operation, known as Chakra V, was large and well organized, notes the report – it was revolving around false pop -ups encouraging people to think that their computers were broken and to provide a phone number to “call Microsoft” and solve problems.
However, calls were really made towards crooks, who would encourage victims to install remote office software, or malware, and use it to steal sensitive files and money.
The operation included pop-up creators, search engine optimizingers, lead generators, logistics and technology suppliers, payment processors and talent suppliers.
Microsoft also said that the introduction of the AI generation has made the scale of the operation infinitely easier and therefore – more dangerous.
“These actors used a generative AI to evolve their operations, in particular to identify potential victims, automate the creation of malicious pop-up windows and carry out linguistic translations to target Japanese victims,” said Microsoft.
“This activity highlights increasingly sophisticated tactics used by cybercriminals and highlights the importance of proactive global collaboration to protect victims.”
