People should avoid posting close-up photographs and selfies on social media, particularly on WhatsApp, cyber security expert and professor at Sahyadri College of Engineering and Management Dr Ananth Prabhu G warned.
“One can post a low-resolution group photograph, taken from a distance,” he said, while responding to a caller at the phone-in programme, organised by Prajavani, at DH-PV Editorial Office in Balmatta on Tuesday.
Prabhu urged the people to be wary of suspicious e-mails and messages.
He appealed to the people not to share elaborate details on social media. While enrolling for WhatsApp, one needs to give valid phone number to get OTP.
Caller ID spoofing
The cyber forensic is advanced now and can trace the caller ID spoofing (that allows you to display a phone number different than the actual number from which the call was placed) at the earliest, he added.
On how to check the veracity of the messages received via WhatsApp, Prabhu said by pasting the messages on www.snopes.com, one can check the accuracy of the messages and video received. If the messages are fake, then legal action can be initiated by submitting a complaint to the police, he added. To submit a complaint on fake messages, one need to export the primary evidence to email and then take a screenshot of the message to submit it as a proof, Prabhu added.
Notisave app
Notisave app in the mobilephone autosaves notifications received via WhatsApp and Telegram as well.
To know whether the photographs and videos posted on social media are misused by miscreants, Prabhu said that posting high resolution photographs can be morphed easily. Using www.tineye.com, one can go for reverse image search by uploading the photo that a person thinks that is being misused. The search will reveal whether the said photo is used somewhere else by some individuals. It will also reveal the origin of the photograph from where it was downloaded, Prabhu added.
Advising the people to have two bank accounts, one exclusively for online transaction and another for offline purpose, he said many people without properly reading the messages received from unknown sources press the link in the message, thus revealing the details to fraudsters.
He urged people not to get their cellphone repaired at unauthorised service centres, where there are possibilities of installing fake apps using the same design and logo of the original app, thereby helping the online fraudsters.
ATM skimming
On ‘ATM skimming’, Prabhu said, ‘’ATM skimming is theft of card information with help of a device called skimmer. When the card is swiped at the machine, the skimmer device captures the information stored on the card’s magnetic strip.” Thus, banks have come out with a cardless enabled ATM, he added.