What a Nightmare but Thank You Hackers

Sounds counterintuitive right and am sure you all must be wondering why am I thanking the hackers. Let's begin the story, at 9.33 a.m. on a Tuesday, a working day, when I was busy doing numerous things I got a what’s app message from my sister-in-law saying that she by mistake had sent me a message which contained her “what’s app code” whatever that means and she wanted me to resend it to her to enable her to operate her what’s app. I could not quite get the message, saw a red flag and called her back. I was wondering why would she want me to resend the message as she would still have the massage in her sent messages and she was operating her whats's app. Despite sensing a red flag I failed to take as much precaution as the situation demanded and made a fatal mistake. I called her back thinking I should verify with her but I made the call on what’s app audio instead of a regular call. I intended to make a regular call as in any such situation where an unusual demand is being made especially vis a vis a code or an OTP one should get alerted that there could be something wrong with the what’s app so to be on the safer side the call should always be made by any other mode like a regular call or a landline. I made a what’s app audio call inadvertently as I just looked for her number in my call log. In an I -phone the call log is mixed, what’s app audio and regular calls both are recorded together in the call history. I knew this for a fact but at that moment instead of being super careful and making sure I was calling on the regular number I faltered big time, didn’t pay as much attention as I should have and did the unthinkable which landed me in a thick soup and taught me several life lessons . Let’s first talk about the mundane before I share the sublime and the life lessons with you all. I pressed her number from the call log which unfortunately was a what’s app audio call as the last call I had made to her was a what’s app audio call in the morning to enquire about her health. My call was denied and that was another red flag which I miserably failed to take cognizance of. I got another message saying, “I am not feeling too well and will call you later could you please immediately forward the message.” As luck would have it she wasn’t feeling well since the last evening and this message made me fall right into the trap and without making any further enquiry I forwarded the message. I violated the golden rule. The hacker obviously knew that she wasn’t well from my chat history. When I thought I was talking to my sister in law I was talking to the hacker as her what’s app was also hacked unbeknown to her or to me at that time . My mamaji told me later that the message addressed to him started with Hi mamaji and to my chachaji as hi chachaji. A few of my friends and well-wishers who reacted immediately tried calling me back but made the same mistake as I did, called me on the what’s app audio which was in control of the hacker. Upon confirmation from me as far as they were concerned as they didn’t know or realise that it was the hacker who was impersonating me responding on the what’s app massage, a few of them went ahead and helped by sending money on the QR code /phone number. A lawyer friend in the morning as soon the message was received by him realized that my what’s app was hacked and got the person tracked with the help of cybercrime police and sent me the details. I then officially lodged a complaint with the cybercrime police. A few of my friends engaged with the hacker to get us the details of his bank accounts thinking that it could help the cybercrime police to trace the person and his location. I submitted all such evidence collected by my friends to the cybercrime cell. I reached out to my friends in the police even across the state borders to expedite the matter so that with their intervention my what’s app could be restored to me at the earliest. The hacker had disabled me from getting logged out, I could not uninstall the app or reinstall it on another device. The hacker was deleting messages from the groups I was a part of. They knew who my husband was and threw him out from many groups . Anyone putting a message alerting people that my phone was hacked was being deleted by them as they were in complete control of my what’s app. They could do whatever they wished in all the groups that I was a part of and especially where I was an administrator. I had to tell my sister and cousins to broadcast it on their social media account as LinkedIn is the only social media presence I have. With the help of the AI the hackers knew my relationship with people and also the current status of our conversation. In the case of my sister-in-law from where the whole story started if the second message was not as specific as it was I still give myself benefit of the doubt that I would not have fallen for their tactics. I was quite distressed and felt very vulnerable and threatened. I got all my on-line banking apps, credit/ debit cards frozen including the G pay and Paytm. I didn’t know whether that was required or not but I didn’t want to take any chance. Later when we knew for a fact that it was only the what’s app that was hacked we realized that freezing my banking apps and others was an overkill. Golden Rules to get saved from hacking • Don’t ever help anyone by sending money till you speak with that person on a secure line which could be a regular cellular call or a land line call. • Don’t ever forward/resend any codes of any kind to anyone whatsoever Now let’s talk about some great things that were the unintended fall outs of this almost nightmarish experience but enriched my life and gave me insight into who I am and how much I am loved. Between my husband and I, we were flooded with calls may be 50-60 people all of who had got the distress message for help from me. Then there were people who couldn’t reach us as our phones were perpetually busy who called my parents and sister. So after a while I really felt overwhelmed with the concern, family and friends were expressing. I was beyond touched by peoples’ generosity who without hesitating for a moment gave me money or were willing to give me money. I felt so much loved and I mean this howsoever stupid it might sound . I am a human after all that too an emotional one and my heart was filled with gratitude for the goodwill I never thought I had amongst my family and friends. Another very humbling discovery was my own stupidity. I never thought I for one could fall for something so stupid like this but I did, exploding the myth of my own smartness, alertness and presence of mind in my own estimation. I thought I couldn’t suffer fools but this experience made me realise that I too have some more than fair amount of foolishness in me and I need to be more accepting and forgiving of others’ failings. I always wondered who are the people who would send the codes to hackers and practically hand over the phone to them. I am also one of them and the fact that the hackers were very smart don’t make me any less foolish. Now I think I will have more empathy for people who fall prey to such crimes. What a day it has been. I am still trying to reactivate things that out of fear I got frozen. It will take minimum of a week before the fresh physical debit card will reach me and I would need that to reactivate my money apps.