Ahmedabad: Cybercrooks sent a WhatsApp wedding invitation from a number familiar to a 71-year-old retired businessman, prompting him to download a malicious APK file and leaving him poorer by Rs 6.4 lakh. According to a complaint filed on Tuesday with Cybercrime police, the senior citizen, a resident of Meghaninagar, received the digital wedding card on Sept 15.Since the digital wedding card came from an acquaintance’s number, he did not suspect anything and clicked on it. Soon afterwards, his device was breached and the same card was forwarded to many of his WhatsApp contacts.Two days later, he received SMS alerts about unauthorised account transactions. His complaint states that a total of Rs 6.4 lakh was debited from two accounts.Cybercrime police said fraudsters often disguise malicious APK files as wedding invitations, courier notifications, festival greetings or utility bills to trick users into installing malware on their phones. Investigators suspect that after the APK was installed, the fraudsters gained remote access to the victim’s device, stole banking credentials and intercepted OTPs.The complainant first alerted cybercrime helpline 1930 and later approached Cybercrime police. Investigators found that the money was transferred to multiple bank accounts through several transactions.
