India has been cracking down on tech support scammers in an effort to "combat and dismantle" finance-related cyber crime, officials announced on Thursday.
Officials raided around 76 suspected illegal call center locations across India, in several different states, according to a press release from India's Central Bureau of Investigations. These raids were part of a police operation called Chakra-II. The scammers often pretend to work for reputable companies like Microsoft and Amazon, according to a press release from Amazon.
Now, Amazon and Microsoft are teaming up with CBI and international law enforcement in an effort to cut down on the calls. Many of these scammers target Americans, with over 2,000 people being impacted, according to Amazon. Countries like Canada, Australia, the UK, Germany, and Spain have also been affected.
Law enforcement seized 32 phones, 48 laptops and hard discs, and 33 SIM cards and froze several bank accounts amid the raid of the 76 locations, according to CBI. The locations were in Indian states including Bihar, Dehli, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal.
The FBI estimates that in 2022, over 32,000 people were targeted by tech and customer support scams, with over $800 million in losses. Amazon said it has a "zero tolerance" policy for scammers pretending to be part of the company. It has taken down over 20,000 phishing websites and 10,000 phone numbers associated with fraud scams.
Oftentimes, scammers will target elderly victims, with 69% of victims being 60 or older, according to the FBI. Ensuring that you and your loved ones are aware of the warning signs of a scam call or phishing email or text can help them avoid being tricked into handing away sensitive information...
It's a small step to address a worldwide problem, of which India is a focal point. The number of victims is likely magnitudes larger, as many people don't want to admit they were scammed or don't know how to report a scamming. (A reminder that tech companies won't contact you via phone, email or text if there's a problem.)
Fears mounted Sunday that the Israel-Gaza war could swell into a wider conflict amid rising cross-border attacks on Israel’s north from Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants in Lebanon and expanding Israeli airstrikes across the region.
Syria’s state news agency said Israel struck the Damascus and Aleppo international airports in early-morning attacks, damaging runways. In the West Bank, a rare Israeli airstrike hit a mosque, which the military said had been used as a command center for Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants.
The potential for escalation remained particularly high along Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, where the Israeli military continued to evacuate towns on Sunday in the face of “more and more attacks” from Hezbollah, said Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, a spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces.
About 100,000 Israelis have been evacuated nationwide, an Israeli government spokesperson said Sunday, and another 100,000 have moved voluntarily...
Hezbollah's patrons in Iran and Syria (and therefore Russia) are playing with fire, along with their terrorist stooges.
Reports out of Israel’s National Center of Forensic Medicine claim to show the brutality of Hamas’ attack on Israeli civilians.
Journalists gathered in Tel Aviv to view remains from Hamas’ Oct. 7 ambush on Israel, which killed 1400 people, according to Israeli authorities.
Experts, reporters and volunteers at the center, known as Abu Kabir, appeared “visibly disturbed” by what they heard and saw, which included accounts of beheaded bodies and photos of charred remains, according to news outlet The Media Line.
Some 200 experts ― including forensic pathologists, anthropologists, and radiologists from Israel, the U.S., Switzerland, New Zealand and elsewhere ― reviewed remains at Abu Kabir, which is working to identify the victims.
Currently, 350 bodies remain unidentified, but the center believes it will be able to determine the identities of 150 more bodies through DNA analysis and CT scans.
The head of Abu Kabir, Dr. Chen Kugel, said the victims’ ages span from three months to 80 or 90 years old.
Kugel described Hamas’ violence as beyond comprehension to the press, saying, “I’ve seen many things in my 31-year career, but the magnitude and the cruelty is terrible.”
He also told The Media Line that Hamas militants “enjoyed the murders so much that they did everything they could do to celebrate the killing.”...
The word "ugly" to describe this is barely suffices. Barbaric, psychopathic, monstrous, pure evil -- get us closer to the reality.
