New Delhi, May 8 -- A phone number belonging to Niti Aayog vice chairman Ashok Kumar Lahiri was allegedly hacked on Thursday evening, he claimed in a Facebook post the same day. He claimed the hacker used the number to send WhatsApp messages to multiple people seeking money requests. Lahiri is supposed to assume office on Friday. "Just to inform everyone that my personal phone number has been hacked. If I get anyone asking money, sending phonepe/google pay number or any other financial help message from this number, please don't trust anyone and make any money transactions. This is totally fake and deceptive act. Be careful and let others know. Thank you," he wrote, in Bengali, on Facebook. In a screenshot of a WhatsApp conversation uploaded by Lahiri, and separate screenshots viewed by HT, it appears that a person posing as Lahiri says they need Rs.56,000 and that their Unified Payments Interface service isn't working. They also promise to return the money in two hours. At the same time, the recipient repeatedly tries to call Lahiri through WhatsApp but these calls go unanswered. The sender continues texting instead of speaking on call, eventually asking "what happened" after sharing a payment number, which does not belong to Lahiri. Access is usually obtained through OTP theft, phishing links or SIM swapping attacks linked to the victim's phone number. An official at Department of Telecommunication, who requested anonymity, said the first line of defence for such cases is to report on the Cybercrime portal simultaneously with the Whatsapp web portal. Usually WhatsApp takes cognisance and restores the account within six to seven hours. However, the official added that a multi-factor authentication remain absent in WhatsApp. "WhatsApp hasn't made two-factor authentication mandatory, it leaves it up to the user to activate it. This leaves India's 600-700 million users on WhatsApp vulnerable. The cases related to digital arrests, sextortion, account takeover, 85% of them happen on WhatsApp," said the official. "People in India aren't yet digitally literate, so the onus is on such platforms to put user protections in place," added the official. HT reached out to WhatsApp, but did not get a response immediately....