Drop factor: Nabiullina lacks the coupling of banks with telecom operators
In the fight against fraud, there is not enough coupling of banks with telecom operators, the head of the Central Bank, Elvira Nabiullina, said on February 18 at the Ural Forum. Phones remain the main channel of attacks. Scammers extort money from people by cashing it through couriers. Mandatory verification of ATM transactions has helped reduce such fraud by 40%. But despite all the tightening measures, the total volume of thefts continues to grow: last year the amount increased by almost 6.5% to 29 million rubles. How the authorities will respond to the threat of deepfakes and money laundering through the crypt is in the Izvestia article.
What are the authorities doing to combat fraudsters?
The largest Russian forum for discussing challenges related to cybersecurity started on February 18 in Yekaterinburg. The key event of the first day was a plenary discussion with the participation of representatives of credit institutions.
Last year, fraudsters stole 29 billion rubles from citizens, which is 6.4% more than in 2024, the head of the Bank of Russia, Elvira Nabiullina, said at the forum. Nevertheless, according to her, for the first time in recent years, there are grounds for "cautious optimism."
A special button in bank applications played a significant role. It can be used to mark a transfer as fraudulent. After that, the data will be transferred to the Central Bank's database. The largest organizations suspend more than 300,000 operations every month, she added.
Significant progress has been made in the fight against credit fraud.
— Remember how quickly it grew, it was very socially sensitive. And we can see now that the volume of credit fraud has dropped significantly — by 40%. And the measures that both legislators and financial market participants have taken have had their effect," said the head of the Central Bank.
In addition, the average amount of damage is reduced. For example, in February last year it amounted to 22 thousand rubles, and in November — 16 thousand. But there are also unresolved issues, Nabiullina stressed.
— We do not have enough coupling of banks with telecom operators. Where the coupling is being built, there is a greater effectiveness of anti-fraud procedures. The phone was and remains the main channel of attacks through which scammers get to people," she explained.
There are already restrictions on the delivery of confirmation codes during a telephone conversation, said Vladimir Ulyanov, head of the Zecurion analytical center. According to him, a stronger coupling may mean an active exchange of information between credit institutions and operators. For example, information about calls, frequency, duration, connected subscriber numbers, and the subscriber's location. Based on this information, it would be possible to make realistic assumptions that the operations are influenced or directly carried out by the scammers themselves.
If we allow free data exchange between telecom operators and banks, we can expect that the number of blocked unwanted transactions will double or even more, Vladimir Ulyanov estimated. At the same time, collecting information in one place would increase the risks of other abuse scenarios by people with access to the data, the expert warned.
In any case, VTB CEO Andrey Kostin advised Russians to remember Bulgakov's novel "The Master and Margarita" when making calls from unknown interlocutors and "never talk to unknown people."
830 criminal cases of droppery have been opened in the Russian Federation.
Despite the fact that the regulator has already pinned down intruders inside the banking infrastructure, they use workarounds — money is withdrawn in cash through couriers, Nabiullina said. In response to this threat, a mandatory check for signs of fraud when issuing money at ATMs has been introduced since September 2025. The effect was almost instantaneous — thefts through ATM withdrawals dropped by 40%, but the volume is still significant.
The new Central Bank rules for checking ATM transactions, which have been in effect since September, are a correct but "symptomatic" step, says Dina Fomicheva, director of the Telecom Exchange's corporate sales department. They don't solve the problem completely because they're fighting the consequence (cashing out), not the cause (social engineering).
It is necessary not only to look at the transaction parameters, but also to strengthen the analysis of "pre-anomalies". The key point is integration with telecom operators. If the system sees that a person has received 50 calls from unknown numbers in the last six hours, and then he goes to cash out, this is a much more significant sign than just the withdrawal amount, the expert is sure.
At the same time, the authorities do not plan to stop. The Central Bank intends to publish a ranking of banks by the level of their fight against drops, said the head of the regulator.
From July 1, 2025 to February 1, 2026, law enforcement officers initiated more than 830 criminal cases of droppery, Deputy Interior Minister Andrei Khrapov emphasized at the session. At the same time, 174 droppers and 69 drop organizers were brought to criminal responsibility.
It is becoming less economically profitable to commit fraud — cards on the black market and dropper services have become more expensive, said Stanislav Kuznetsov, Deputy Chairman of the Board of Sberbank. Previously, a card on the Darknet cost 5-10 thousand rubles, but now it costs 20-30 thousand rubles. In addition, dropper services increased from 1-2% to 15-20%. This means that cyber fraud is becoming more expensive compared to previous years, the representative of the credit institution added.
— Now, in most cases, the "drop kit" <...> is more expensive than the stolen amount. And our goal is to minimize the chances of scammers using the same card twice. To do this, the details of the droppers must be entered into our database quickly. Reaction speed is very important," said Elvira Nabiullina.
Sberbank asked officials to speed up the adoption of a law on combating deepfakes. According to Stanislav Kuznetsov, deputy chairman of the board, about 150 such forgeries are recorded daily on behalf of ministers, heads of organizations and heads of subjects, and citizens trust this.
There are still few tools for recognizing deepfakes, and the attacks themselves are becoming cheaper and more technologically advanced, warned the deputy head of the Kontur product group.Aegis and Staffcop by Yuri Drachenin. Pictures, voices, and videos are all easier to fake, and attackers are actively using this.
If a warning appears during a conversation or in a messenger that the person you are communicating with is a deepfake, this can help a lot. But this requires serious analytics, neural networks that will compare an image or voice with a real person in real time and determine the substitution, the expert added.
How to Protect Yourself from Crypto Fraud
The attackers are also working with cryptocurrencies, relying on the fact that this market is still in the "gray" zone. The Bank of Russia has prepared proposals for regulating digital currencies, which is currently being discussed with the Cabinet of Ministers, the head of the regulator said.
— People sell cryptocurrencies, and in exchange they receive money that was stolen by scammers from conscientious people. In fact, these sellers of cryptocurrencies become unwitting sites of a fraudulent scheme," said Elvira Nabiullina.
According to Dina Fomicheva, AML services can be used to solve this problem (among them are Chainalysis, TRM Labs, Elliptic, SHARD). Every P2P trader (seller of cryptocurrencies) must check his counterparty's wallet through them before accepting rubles on the card.
These services show whether an address is linked to fraud or darknet markets. If the system finds a high risk, it is better to abandon the transaction. The introduction of mandatory AML screening on large P2P platforms and exchanges can reduce the number of successful laundering transactions by 30-40% in the first year, the expert expects. This will cut off mass schemes.
In general, payments in cryptocurrencies in the country should be legalized as soon as possible, said Andrey Kostin. A lot of clients, including large exporters, are asking for white payment methods.
To protect themselves from fraudsters, it is important for ordinary investors and participants in P2P transactions to introduce multi—level verification - at least two-factor identification and regular password change, says financial advisor and founder Rodin.Capital Alexey Rodin. In his opinion, in order to minimize the risks of the industry as a whole, it is necessary to be ready for significant investments, in 2026 the volume of such investments may approach 500 billion rubles.
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