The Dubai Police have warned residents against downloading unknown programmes and apps on smartphones.

Major-General Khalil Ibrahim Al Mansouri, assistant commander-in-chief the Dubai Police for criminal investigation affairs, said such programmes could be spywares, which would help fraudsters to collect all the data and documents of the users.

In a recent incident, the cybercrimes department of the Dubai Police was able to solve the mystery of a credit card fraud, where a customer lost Dh30,000.

The police said an Arab man lodged a complaint with the Dubai Police, saying that somebody used his credit card to make purchases worth Dh30,000. He said the last time he used the card was in a hotel and confirmed that he didn't leave the card anywhere.

The cybercrimes department launched an investigation and found that the complainant had stored the pictures of his credit card on his phone. Some criminals copied all the information and pictures on his phone via some programme and used the card to make purchases in Nigeria and other countries.

Maj-Gen Al Mansouri said while downloading any application, the user accept the terms of the operator, who may have access to the images and other information stored on the phone. "Through downloading spyware programmes or applications, the user gives access to these to the owner of the programme, who can exploit these information," he warned.

"Anonymous links often send viruses to the phone, which may give control of the device to unknown parties. They can access and control all the social media accounts of the user and some times, it is difficult to recover those accounts which can be used for criminal purposes."

Lt Col Salem Salemin, deputy director of the general department of cyber ?? crimes at the Dubai Police, said that some anonymous links are widely seen on social media, giving attractive offers from airlines, major companies or celebrities. Clicking on these links may cause installing viruses, which could be used to stealing personal data.

He pointed out that the department is managing about 3,000 electronic patrols per month to close suspicious sites and social media accounts that are being reported having viruses or unknown links .

Source: Khaleej Times