- The Indian Police carried out raids at 19 locations to target scammers
- Six people were arrested and several equipment was seized
- The operation targeted older Japanese victims
Indian and Japanese law enforcement has, using Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit (DCU), using a large financial scam and arrested six people suspected of running the entire operation.
India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) recently carried out attacks on 19 locations across the country and dismantled a large network that includes technical support schemes.
The network mostly targeted older adults in Japan (60 years and over) and included two illegal call centers. In addition to the arrests, both digital and physical infrastructure were seized, including computers, storage devices, digital video recorders and phones.
Chakra v
Fightback started with the Japan Cybercrime Control Center (JC3), a Japanese nonprofit dedicated to combating cybercrime that identified the cyber criminal operation that mimics Microsoft, and marked it to the tech giant.
The operation, known as Chakra V, was large and well organized, the report notes-it was about fake pop-ups that fooled people into believing their computers were broken and giving a phone number to “call Microsoft” and get the problems solved.
However, the calls were actually made against the scammers who would fool the victims to install remote desktop software or malware, and use this to steal sensitive files and money.
The operation included pop-up creators, search engine optimizers, lead reinforcers, logistics and technology suppliers, payment processors and talent providers.
Microsoft also said that the introduction of Gen AI made scaling of the operation infinitely easier and thus – more dangerous.
“These actors used generative AI to scale their operations, including to identify potential victims, automate the creation of malicious pop -up windows and perform language translations to target Japanese victims,” Microsoft explained.
“This activity highlights the increasingly sophisticated tactics used by cyber criminals and emphasizes the importance of proactively global cooperation to protect the victims.”
