A 56-year-old general manager of Bank of Baroda lost Rs 4.27 lakh after allegedly downloading a malicious APK file that was sent to him from his personal secretary’s hacked mobile phone.
In a series of events that began on July 18, the manager’s personal secretary, Narayan Swami, was travelling from Chhatrapatti Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT) and connected his mobile phone to the station’s free Wi-Fi. The secretary subsequently noticed that his phone had been hacked when an ‘RTO CHALAN.APK’ file was then sent from his phone to people in his contact list.
The incident came to light after five unauthorised transactions were carried out using the senior bank official’s credit card. The general manager also received the APK file from his secretary and downloaded it on his mobile phone. On July 21, while he was at his office, he noticed that his phone appeared to have been compromised and that messages were being sent to people in his contacts.
According to MRA Marg police officials, the complainant, who works as a general manager at Bank of Baroda’s Horniman Circle office in Fort, had been living in Mumbai for the past three months. while his family resides in West Bengal. The manager normally uses a Bank of Baroda credit card for personal expenses.
However, at the time, he had not received any message indicating that money had been debited from his account or card. He therefore deleted the APK file and returned to work.
The final calculations of the financial loss came to light only on August 3, when the general manager received his credit-card bill and checked the transactions. He discovered that five transactions had been carried out without his consent on July 21, totalling Rs 4,27,264.
After discovering the fraud, the manager lodged a complaint on the cybercrime reporting portal. MRA Marg police registered on August 4 under Sections 66(C) and 66(D) of the Information Technology Act and Sections 318(4) and 319(2) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).
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