India News | Voyager Infosec Detects Fake App for COVID Vaccination

New Delhi, Jan 7 (PTI) Cyber intelligence firm Voyager Infosec on Thursday said it has detected a fake website and mobile app masquerading as the official portal for COVID-19 vaccination in the country.

It said the website with domain name 'co-win.co.in', being run from Jaipur, was providing links to download a fake app with the intent to capture personal details and other data of users.

"During our investigation we found that a fake website and malicious mobile app for COVID-19 vaccination registration was being run by scamsters to fraud people.

"They were using a similar name as the official COVIN app (which is yet to be launched by the Government) and fake news articles along with photos of the PM and home minister to make the malicious mobile app and websites look authentic," Voyager Infosec Director Jiten Jain said in a statement.

The union health ministry had on Wednesday cautioned people against downloading and sharing personal information on some apps named Co-WIN, "created by unscrupulous elements", that sound similar to the upcoming official platform of the government for carrying out the COVID-19 vaccination process.

The website at the given link was not available during a random check.

"Idea (of the website managers) was to trick people to download this fake app and steal their data and likely conduct financial frauds in the coming days.

"During the investigation we were able to map the ownership of...(the) fake website and malicious mobile app to a Jaipur based entity," Jain said.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)