PR No.: 40/2026 dated July 17, 2026
Applicable Act/Rule: SEBI (Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements) Regulations, 2015
Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) intimated SEBI about an emerging cybercrime trend termed the “Boss Scam” or CEO/MD impersonation fraud, targeting CEOs or high-ranking officials via email, WhatsApp, Microsoft Teams, or other social media platforms.
The press release describes two fraud strategies:
(a) impersonation of MDs/CEOs via deepfake voice cloning, AI-generated video calls, or false social media groups and
(b) sending a compressed .zip archive containing a malicious executable and a Dynamic Link Library file, which, when extracted and executed, hijacks the recipient’s active WhatsApp Web session. In both strategies, finance officers are instructed to transfer funds to specified mule accounts.
Regulated entities and listed companies are advised to cross-check instructions received via WhatsApp/email/social media by calling seniors directly, avoid fund transfers based solely on social-media instructions, avoid installing unverified executables, log out inactive Web WhatsApp sessions, and report incidents to 1930 or www.cybercrime.gov.in.
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