12:45, 20 July 2022 Page views 332 views

Phishing bank websites grew 10-fold in number

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In total, VTB detected almost 10,000 phishing and fraudulent resources in the first half of the year, with over 70% of them in June alone. Month of April was second in popularity with fraudsters, but the number of detected resources was just about 1,000 then. The fraudsters were least active in March, with the number of detected resources not exceeding 100, which was half that of January – a month traditionally “calm”.

Fraudsters distribute links to malicious sites and applications on social networks and messengers, but 95% of cases take place on standard web resources. Meanwhile, the response time does not exceed 24 hours on average.

 Criminals constantly adapt the themes of fake pages, focusing on hot news such as new social benefits, business development consultations, investment programs, and surveys for rewards.

 Most often, they use phishing pages to collect personal data of customers including phone numbers, passport series and numbers, SNILS (personal insurance policy number), which are often used further in social engineering. In addition, visitors to fake resources are often offered to fill out a payment form, from which the fraudsters capture the client's bank data such as card details, login and password to enter the Internet bank or mobile application.

 “Fraud activity is gaining momentum after a slump in early spring, and criminals are increasingly looking to get customers’ personal data. The beginning of summer saw a sharp increase in phishing attacks, and today every tenth user call to our contact center deals with suspected fraud. This problem needs to be addressed at national level. VTB has already prepared a number of legislative amendments to more effectively counter fraudsters and strengthen control over the creation of fraudulent resources in order to minimize potential damage to the population,” comments Anatoly Pechatnikov, Deputy President and Chairman of the Management Board of VTB.

 In June, VTB received a record number of customer complaints on suspected fraud since the beginning of the year. Their number exceeded 850,000 – a growth by one third compared to May. In total, the bank processed almost 3.9 million requests related to fraud in the first half of the year. The total amount of rescued money reached 12.9 billion rubles; VTB protected the funds of almost 600,000 clients.