Midnight Web by Rahul Banerjee

LUCKNOW : The digital landscape is witnessing a disturbing trend in cybercrime, with extortion schemes becoming increasingly sophisticated. One such victim, Dr. Ruby Thomas, a practicing physician at Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital in Lucknow, experienced a harrowing ordeal when she was targeted by cybercriminals who held her digitally captive for five hours. A Terrifying Ordeal Dr. Thomas's nightmare began with a WhatsApp message containing an arrest warrant and a police ID. During a video call with the scammers, who displayed a convincing official Mumbai Police monogram, she was accused of being linked to a high-profile scam involving Naresh Goyal and a shooting incident. The criminals demanded physical verification of her identity, preying on her fear and distress, leading her to the brink of suicide. Ultimately, they extorted ₹90,000 before abruptly disconnecting the call. The Mechanics of Deception The scammers used forged documents, including an ID card of a supposed...

Meta will send notifications within its apps to public figures and celebrities, letting them know they are part of a new experiment and that they can choose to opt-out. Agranovich, the Director of Global Threat Disruption at Meta, explained that if Meta suspects an ad or account might be a scam using a celebrity's image, they will use facial recognition technology (FRT) to compare the celebrity’s face from their Facebook or Instagram profile picture to the one in the ad. If there’s a match and the ad is confirmed to be a scam, Meta will block it. He mentioned that this process is quicker and more accurate than human reviews. The second use of FRT is for account recovery. Meta will use FRT along with video selfies to help users verify their identity more easily when trying to regain access to hacked accounts. Sometimes, users lose access to their Facebook or Instagram accounts if they forget their password, lose their device, or get tricked by a scammer. If an account is comp...