Phishbowl

  • The Bot Attack

    I was talking to a friend yesterday, who had wanted to buy tickets to watch one of the India matches at the stadium. After reading about the empty stadiums and counterfeit ticket scams, fans in Pune were fortunately prewarned. So, my friend and another one of his friends valiantly logged in an hour ahead into…

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  • Who’s liability is it anyway?

    Regular readers of my posts know my penchant for curating interesting stories of fraud that catch my eye through the week. What stood out last week was a total game-changer, amidst all the doom and gloom tales of wily scammers and hapless victims that fill up the honeycombs of the internet news feeds and social…

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  • How to fight DeepFake Fraud

    Some time ago, a deep fake video of a movie actress called Rashmika Mandana went viral. The video had her face morphed over a British Indian influencer’s video. Within days of this incident, an indecent AI generated deep fake image of Bollywood star Katrina Kaif also went viral. Such incidents are of course unacceptable. I…

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  • Fraud and the World Cup

    Like a billion other fans I watched the World Cup final with many great hopes (and nervous energy). All the hopes were crushed well before the game ended. And because I’m such a one-track mind, I started thinking hmmm what lesson can fraud fighters take away from this defeat so we can go back on…

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  • Gods of Fraud

    Dear fellow-fraud junkies, I’m back with your favorite weekly fix. This past week I’ve heard some mouth-watering fraud stories that I’ve been bursting to talk about. I just could not decide which ones should be covered here. There was some super stiff competition. But let me present the three winners for top fraudsters in India….

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  • 20 Privacy & Security Settings for your iPhone

    🔒 Your iPhone isn’t as private as you think… Think your default settings keep you safe? Think again. From sneaky location tracking to hidden app permissions, your iPhone could be quietly leaking your data. We’ve compiled 20 must-change privacy & security settings that you need to know.

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  • Cyber Hygiene Tips

    Use these below general safety tips to increase your chances of being safe while online. Implementing these tips can greatly enhance your safety and security while navigating the internet.

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  • Fraud Verifications

    A report by a KYC/BGV vendor found that the most forged documents were Voter ID, PAN Cards and Aadhar, in that order. In India we already have a problem of plenty. Add to the further issue of multiplicity of Aadhar-PAN one-to-many combos. Once I remember when issuing a largish payment to a party, I had…

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  • Wolves of Wall Street in Sheep’s Clothing

    In my business I have no option but to listen into tons of underground chatter. That’s where I ran into a scam app let’s call it BS AI (because most of it was BS in the name of AI). It grandly claims to be the trading expert in the field of artificial intelligence. (I wish…

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  • Tinder Swindler – The all new dating scam

    If you are 20 something looking for love on Tinder/Bumble/OkCupid/Hinge etc. then you’ve probably read about the dating scam. Story time. Amit (name changed), VP of a startup in Gurugram was looking for a same sex relationship on a dating app. The potential partner chatted him up and asked if he could drop by. The…

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