VTB warns of increased fraud via banking app updates
Russian citizens' money is more likely to be stolen through a request to "update the bank's application". This was warned on Thursday, September 26, by Nikita Chugunov, senior vice president of VTB, head of the digital business department.
"This type of fraud has gained momentum quite quickly: for the first mid-September the number of complaints from bank customers about such calls increased sixfold," he said in a conversation with RBC.
In a conversation with a fraud victim, the attackers introduce themselves as employees of a financial company and ask to install the "correct" banking application. They insist on updating and say that otherwise the bank will allegedly block accounts.
The victim's phone receives a link to the supposedly correct version of the banking application, but as a result of clicking on it, the device is blocked. This is how fraudsters gain access to the program and can withdraw funds from the cards.
Chugunov recommends to stop the conversation immediately if the caller calls to update the application. Subsequently, it is necessary to apply to the financial organization with a request for temporary blocking of the personal account, so that attackers could not make transactions.
On the eve of the Deputy Chairman of the Board of Sberbank Stanislav Kuznetsov reported the discovery of a new scheme of theft of funds through the contactless payment system. According to him, in half of the cases of money theft, the attackers persuade the victim to install an application of the payment system and link a bank card.
Prior to that, on September 14, Pavel Myasoedov, an expert at IT-Reserve, pointed out that the fraudsters' tactics of attacking banking applications have run up against protective measures, as users' actions are analyzed by artificial intelligence. At the same time, fraudsters realize that the pressure on them is increasing and try to translate communication with the victim into real life, the analyst noted.
