Cybersecurity researchers have revealed an alarming rise in investment scams in India that are being promoted through social media messaging platforms such as Facebook, WhatsApp, Telegram, and others. These fraudsters convince users to invest in cryptocurrencies and stocks by promising assured returns, as shown in a new report released on Tuesday.
Since the beginning of 2024, the threat intelligence firm CloudSEK has identified a significant amount of malicious content on social media and messaging platforms. The findings revealed over 29,000 malicious investment advertisements on Facebook, along with a staggering 81,000 fake investment WhatsApp groups.
Additionally, the report emphasised the concerning tactic of impersonation, with 81,000 X accounts posing as recognized financial institutions to lend credibility to these scams.
"Scammers reach out to potential victims through various social media platforms, using compromised data to send direct messages. Once inside these groups, victims are manipulated into believing they are dealing with legitimate investment companies," the researchers explained.
"Scammers provide fake proof of earnings to deceive victims into investing. Promising high returns, they show fake profits to encourage further investments, then ultimately scam the victims and remove them from the WhatsApp group," they added.
It has been reported that India, Malaysia, the US, Thailand, and Vietnam are the primary targets of investment scams. In 2023, India reported more than 100,000 investment scam cases. In the first four months of 2024, a total of Rs 1.2 billion was lost in 4,599 cases of digital fraud. Around 62,687 complaints regarding investment scams were registered in the first four months of this year, resulting in losses of Rs 2.22 billion, as per the report.
Meanwhile, WhatsApp reported that it banned over 6.6 million accounts in India in May 2024 for violating local laws. The company stated that out of the 6,620,000 banned accounts, 1,255,000 were proactively blocked before any user reports.
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Inputs from IANS
