Different organised gangs of thugs continued blackmailing people especially women through theft and damaged smart phone making them victimized in many ways.
According to law enforcers some rackets in guise of smart phone technicians while fixing a device copy and restore all data from memory card and storages, later by showing their secret and personal photos of targeted person a huge sum of ransom is being sought.
According to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), not just stolen phones, but also old phones are at risk. Because it is possible to restore all the files including the pictures on the phone.
Cyber Police Center sources said, 14- to 30-year-olds are the most likely to lodge complaints to them, and most of the complaints are concerning sexual harassment, including spreading hatred, distorting pictures and posting obscene images with photoshop, threatening to sexually harass young women, hacking Facebook identities, anti-social offers, etc. Besides, mobile banking fraud, rumors and online product fraud are also being reported.
Additional Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of CID Cyber Center Kamrul Ahsan said, “Old phones have recently been added as a new tool in cybercrime in the country. Even if you delete the file from the phone, it can often be 'restored' with software. And using this opportunity, some criminals are getting engaged in new types of cyber-crimes.”
“Recently, we have detected and interrogated to get some information about these cyber-crimes. The cyber police center receives 1,500 complaints per day on via mobile phone, Facebook page, and directly. We try to resolve some complaints about the phone and provide them legal advice,” he added.
Mentioning the latest occurrence the officer said a daughter of a government official went to fix her mobile phone in a Gulistan market at the capital. On this occasion, the technician intentionally took copied his Facebook ID data along with the picture on his mobile phone. The phone contained several personal pictures of that young woman.
According to the victim, the shopkeeper started blackmailing the young girl by seeking a large sum of money. But as the demand of the man increased day by day, the young woman was forced to tell the whole matter to her father.
The girl's father informed the Cyber Security Unit of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP). Within a few days, the police were able to arrest the culprit.
Talking to The Bangladesh Post cyber security expert Tanvir Ahmed suggested that, while repairing a smart must store your sensitive data on Google Drive and clear cache of that so that with the software it cannot be retrieved by criminals.
He also suggested fixing smartphones only from trusted technicians and warned them that if any data gets stolen from devices the technician will have consequences. Lastly, being aware and informing the cyber police are the key to stop these incidences.
