4,500 Americans fall for India call-center scam, lose $14m. collectively

Some 4,500 people from the US fell victim to a call-center scam, losing an estimated $14 m. collectively over two years to an India based team of scammers, the New York Times reported Thursday. New Delhi police arrested 50 people involved with the scam. The scammers called people and told them that their bank account details were found at drug cartel crime scenes, and that the only way to avoid arrest was to transfer money to the scammers, the NYT reported.“They were asked to buy Bitcoins or Google gift cards worth all the money in their accounts,” a police officer in New Delhi said, according to the NYT. The money was then transferred to what the victims were told was “a safe government wallet” but that actually belonged to the scammers.Phishing attacks, attempts used by hackers to try and gain sensitive information from people by using fake links or websites, have increased in recent months. Phishing email scams, for example, have increased by 440% since October, according to Check Point research completed at the beginning of December. In Israel, Check Point noted a 103% increase between November and October, with 56% of the emails containing fake messages related to shipments by Amazon, 36% by DHL and 18% by Fedex.On a global scale, DHL is the most popular brand in these phishing attacks; 56% of the total increase in November was due to impersonation, 37% of the increase mimics Amazon and 7% Fedex.By region, the most significant increase in the number of phishing emails was in the US with an increase of 404% from October to November.