According to an official statement on Friday, Mumbai police successfully recovered ₹ 82.55 lakh that a prominent international school in south Mumbai lost in an ‘man in the middle’ online attack. The cyber cell official explained that a ‘man in the middle’ (MITM) attack occurs when an attacker covertly intercepts and relays messages between two parties who believe they are communicating directly.
The fraudulent incident occurred between February 23 and March 16, coinciding with the school’s procurement process for materials to construct a cafeteria. The school had awarded the contract to a firm based in the UAE, which provided its bank details as part of the agreement.
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“An unidentified person created a similar ID and provided details of a US-based bank. Assuming the email was sent from the UAE-based firm, the school transferred ₹ 87.26 lakh. Soon the school realised something was amiss and lodged a complaint with the Central Region Cyber police station,” he said.
An unidentified individual was charged under the Indian Penal Code and Information Technology Act, and the bank’s nodal officer was contacted, resulting in the retrieval of ₹ 82.55 lakh, the official stated.
“Citizens and entities must upgrade their systems for time to time to avoid such attacks. Email IDs etc must be checked and re-checked before such deals are transacted,” he added.