Indian police to query Google over 500,000 fake Gmail IDs linked to bomb hoax

Delhi, September 15 - Indian authorities will question tech giant Google concerning the security lapses that enabled a criminal network to create and manage over 500,000 fake Gmail accounts, Reuters was informed by a police official on Tuesday. The United States-based multinational corporation is already under scrutiny in India for its role in facilitating financial scams through its Firebase web development platform.

The Gujarat police recently dismantled an email network responsible for sending inter-state bomb threats, arresting two individuals and uncovering 513,847 Gmail IDs and passwords in use since 2022. Vivek Bheda, a senior cybercrime official from Gujarat, disclosed to Reuters that this is the first time Google has been implicated in such an investigation. The sheer volume of fake Gmail accounts used is unprecedented, according to Bheda.

Bheda stated that Google will be formally designated as part of the investigation in the near future. The police plan to request policy changes from Google to prevent similar security lapses in the future. Google did not respond to a request for comment. The legal ramifications for Google, should they face any, are currently unclear.

Cybercrime in India, fueled largely by financial scams, costs the nation over $2 billion annually. Law enforcement agencies have ramped up their efforts to tackle technology platforms that have been exploited for such criminal activities. The Gujarat police's investigation kicked off after receiving a bomb threat email on September 10, just days before the BRICS summit in New Delhi.

The threat also implied that countries cooperating with India during the summit would be targeted. However, the threats were proven to be false. One of the arrested suspects had connections with a buyer in Bangladesh who purchased large numbers of these fake accounts, often paid for using cryptocurrency. The police are also concerned about the fact that each fraudulent account utilized two-factor authentication, a robust security measure offered by Google.

The mechanism by which the criminal network managed to create and maintain such a vast number of accounts, while employing two-factor authentication, will be further investigated.