Now Reading: Cybercrime advisory warns of AI video scams on Facebook, Instagram
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Cybercrime advisory warns of AI video scams on Facebook, Instagram
The Story in Brief
The Rajasthan cybercrime branch has issued an advisory warning against a surge in fake government welfare schemes, bogus cashback offers and AI-generated videos of public figures on Facebook and Instagram. Additional director general of police (Cyber Crime) V K Singh said fraudsters were exploiting the names and photographs of prominent figures to make fraudulent schemes appear genuine.
Victims are told they qualify for government benefits and are directed to phone numbers, WhatsApp accounts or websites. Some are contacted from international numbers starting with +92 and asked to pay registration, processing, tax or verification fees. In another scam, victims are persuaded to accept a UPI collect request or enter their UPI PIN, authorising a payment from their account.
The advisory urges people to verify welfare schemes through official government websites and check videos or audio messages against verified sources. Suspicious advertisements should be reported to social media platforms, and evidence preserved. Police cautioned against forwarding unverified offers.
Indian Opinion Analysis
The advisory targets scams that combine social media reach with AI-generated video to impersonate public figures, a technique that makes fraudulent schemes harder to distinguish from genuine announcements. Victims are losing money through UPI collect requests and by being tricked into revealing their PIN, not through account hacking. The advisory leaves open how quickly platforms remove flagged content or whether international call routing can be blocked. The next step is for users to report suspicious accounts and verify offers on official department websites.
Source: timesofindia.indiatimes.com
This brief was synthesised by AI from the source linked above. Methodology and corrections.
