The Crime Branch wing of Haryana Police has raised a red flag on the Aadhaar-Enabled Payment System (AEPS) saying that cyber criminals are conducting financial frauds by siphoning off people’s vital data from the system and cloning the fingerprints available on documents on the government website. The cyber cell under the Crime Branch is currently investigating over 400 complaints pertaining to cyber frauds that are related to AEPS.
Crime Branch’s Additional Director General O P Singh has called it an “online fraud with silicon thumb” as criminals are quick in harnessing vulnerabilities. “People need to be careful and law enforcement agencies are nimble to keep up with them. Aadhar-Enabled Payment System fraud is the latest. During the course of investigation, fraudsters were found withdrawing money by forging biometric thumb impressions and abusing AEPS,” Singh told The Indian Express.
The Crime Branch has advised people to deactivate the AEPS facility from their accounts if they are not using them regularly and avoid registering their fingerprints on any website. It has asked the public to immediately report any act or attempt of cybercrime to the number ‘1930’ within one hour of such an activity as it will help police stop the transfer of the defrauded fund to the cybercriminals’ accounts.
The investigators have now asked the government departments of the state and intermediaries to conduct a safety audit and plug the loopholes that lead to the…
