Mint Primer Flight scare: Why hoax calls are untraceable

Why are hoax calls in the spotlight?

Over the past month, airlines and hotels across India have received over 500 hoax calls delivering bomb threats. With terrorism and violent acts included in these threats, domestic security agencies have been kept on their toes by these calls. However, each of these calls has turned out to be a hoax, raising suspicion that they are a coordinated effort aimed at disrupting the smooth flow of public services and creating a greater threat to maintenance of law, order and vigilance in populous places. This has raised a question on whether law enforcement is helpless against hoax calls.

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Can these calls be traced?

Modern-day hoax and scam calls use the Internet, meaning they aren’t delivered through a conventional telephone line or SIM card that can be physically traced. Today, the use of virtual private networks (VPNs) helps users hide their location. This can guard against authoritarian regimes, but also aids those with malicious intent. Internet calls tap obscure virtual networks to place calls through numbers that don’t exist, thereby misdirecting any potential investigation and erasing digital footprints. In most cases, tracing Internet-based hoax calls is difficult even for cyber forensics experts.

How extensive are these types of calls?

India, with over 1.4 billion people and 950 million telecom subscribers, saw two out of every three people with access to a phone or the Internet receive at least three spam calls a day last year. This means that an average of 5 million scam and hoax calls were made on each day of 2023 in India alone. While most target financial theft, security threats are included in these, too.

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Can’t cybersecurity experts do anything?

India has launched a probe into the calls. Cybersecurity experts say the ability to trace hoax calls depends on the sophistication of network obfuscation that a perpetrator deploys. Typically, only purpose-driven cyberattackers funded by national governments have the necessary funds to deploy sophisticated network-masking and encryption techniques. Unfortunately, there is no single answer to preventing or tracing a hoax call—and there’s no way of straight-up avoiding one, either.

Is regulation an issue here as well?

Yes; if a hoax call is traced to a foreign country, India (in this case) will either need to request its government to cooperate or follow established legal procedures there. Cross-border data and Internet laws differ vastly between nations, and much depends on personal and bilateral relations. Another key challenge here is to collect substantial and watertight evidence that points to a criminal, which is extremely difficult due to technical challenges. Artificial intelligence, which is also used to improve masking, isn’t of much help here.

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