In Russia, a new scheme of telephone fraud has spread, in which attackers, posing as law enforcement officers, intimidate citizens with alleged open criminal proceedings and extort personal data from them in order to steal money from victims' accounts.

This was reported by the press service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia and the Central Bank.

“The regulator informed banks about an increase in the number of cases of telephone fraud using this scenario and recommended that it be taken into account when organizing the work of the customer support service, as well as warn citizens about the risks of disclosing personal data and payment card data,” the Central Bank said in a statement.

The press service of the regulator also told how to identify telephone scammers.

"If during a telephone conversation a stranger refers to a criminal process initiated by the Bank of Russia, this is an attacker," the Central Bank said.

The Bank of Russia reminded that under no circumstances should you share personal information or payment card details with strangers, no matter who they represent.

The Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs called on Russians to be vigilant in connection with the activity of telephone swindlers.

“The Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs explains that if a criminal case is initiated against a citizen, a summons to the police department to the investigator or interrogator are officially sent to the postal address at his place of residence.

The summons can be sent both within the framework of an initiated criminal case, and within the framework of a pre-investigation check, carrying out other procedural actions, ”said the official representative of the Russian Interior Ministry Irina Volk.

  • AGN "Moscow"

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As noted by an expert in the field of information security, professor of the Department of Digital Forensics, Moscow State Technical University

Bauman, Doctor of Legal Sciences Vitaly Vekhov, at present the scammers have improved the scheme that was used earlier.

“They used to call on the phone and say that your relative was detained by the police, a criminal case was opened against him, he is in such and such a police station and you urgently need to transfer such and such a sum of money to the victims in order to allegedly compensate for the damage, and the relative could return home.

Now we are witnessing a "modification" of the fraudulent scheme, when the perpetrator calls a potential victim and already says that a criminal case is underway against her.

Accordingly, further there is a standard set of requirements for the transfer of funds, or for the provision of some allegedly necessary data for the investigation to access electronic means of payment for the purpose of its subsequent illegal use, "the expert explained in an interview with RT.

According to him, to protect against intruders, it is necessary to use a standard set of protection algorithms, which is present on the websites of banking organizations.

Earlier, the head of the Central Bank, Elvira Nabiullina, shared her experience of dealing with telephone scammers, whom she called "advanced" because they used a bot trying to instill confidence in the interlocutor.

“I naturally hung up, which I advise everyone else.

When you are called and introduced from the bank, you must immediately hang up.

You have the phone number that the bank gave you, call and find out if there are any problems.

But you never need to answer, let alone transmit any data, ”she said on the air of RTVI.

At the end of December 2020, BI.Zone, a subsidiary of Sberbank in the field of cybersecurity, published a study according to which, in 2020, telephone scammers made about 15 million calls.

At the same time, Sberbank alone in the first half of the year processed more than 3.4 million user complaints about calls from fraudsters.

“87.7% of complaints were for numbers with Moscow codes: 74.4% for“ +7 (495) ”and 13.3% for“ +7 (499) ”.

None of the numbers with a different region code received a complaint rate exceeding 0.7%.

Several factors contribute to this.

Muscovites are a popular target for scammers, and the Moscow code is less suspicious.

For other regions, numbers with this code are also optimal, because many companies on whose behalf the calls are made have their headquarters in Moscow, ”the study says.

Along with this, a poll by IDF Eurasia showed that 58% of Russians themselves transferred money to telephone scammers, mostly attackers received from victims amounts from 10 to 15 thousand rubles.

At the same time, 22% of respondents encountered fraudsters, but they did not transfer money.