Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) issues advisory on Boss Scam cyber fraud

Key facts

• The Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), under the Union Home Ministry, identified an emerging cybercrime trend known as the Boss Scam or CEO impersonation fraud.
• Cybercriminals target high-ranking officials and executives by delivering malicious archives via email or WhatsApp under the guise of urgent regulatory compliance.
• The fraudsters often impersonate official regulators, such as the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), to falsely claim regulatory violations or mandate urgent security improvements.
• The scam involves a compressed .zip archive containing a malicious executable (.exe) and a Dynamic Link Library (.dll) file that initiates a Trojan dropper on Windows devices.
• The malware hijacks active Web WhatsApp session tokens, allowing fraudsters to message subordinate employees and orchestrate fraudulent financial transfers.