Children's thrill: scammers have intensified attacks on teenagers through game chats
During the summer holidays, children spend more time on the Internet, which is actively used by scammers. Today, their goal is not only gaming accounts or parents' money: teenagers are increasingly being used as perpetrators of illegal actions, manipulating trust and interest in online games. What schemes criminals use and how to protect a child are described in the Izvestia article.
How deception schemes have changed
Scammers have become more likely to attack children through gaming platforms, the Softline group of companies told Izvestia. They offer free in-game currency or gifts, and then try to get confirmation codes, payment details, or access to their parents' smartphones.
"The promise of bonuses often becomes the first step of an attack," said the head of the Special Services Department at Softline Group (Infosecurity, part of Softline Solutions). Konstantin Melnikov. — After trust is established, the attacker creates a sense of urgency, requests a code or access to the device, and if the child refuses, he can turn to intimidation.
A separate problem, experts say, is when a child plays with a parent's smartphone or tablet, which has work mail, corporate messengers, or applications with access to official accounts. Clicking on a fraudulent link or installing a file from a game chat in this case can result not only in personal losses, but also in infection of the device with subsequent compromise of corporate data.
Andrey Sidenko, head of Kaspersky Lab's online security department for children, added that the attackers could target gaming accounts, accounts on social networks and messengers, as well as personal data of the child or his parents.
—Attackers use children's interest in games as bait to spread phishing links and malware," he said. — They offer to download mods, cheats, free versions of games, or in-game currency generators. According to Kaspersky Lab, from April 2024 to April 2025, more than 19 million attempts to distribute malicious and unwanted files under the guise of popular games were recorded.
The trend is relevant, as the peak of cyberbullying activity falls during the holidays, Irina Zinovkina, head of analytical research at Positive Technologies, confirmed. Children stay at home alone, spend more time playing computer games and chatting in messengers, which means criminals have more opportunities for attacks.
— The main arsenal of intruders is reduced to methods of social engineering and the use of malware, — said the expert. — The latter most often ends up on children's devices under the guise of games, "cheats" and useful applications. Such software is dominated by spyware, which collects correspondence, photos and tracks keystrokes, as well as remote control (RAT) tools that give fraudsters full control over the device, including access to the camera and microphone.
According to her, almost every third attack causes direct financial losses, and this figure has not changed over the years. Sometimes teenagers commit such actions under the pressure of closed communities — there are games in which tasks gradually flow from virtual to real.
The next stage is often threats, blackmail and the recruitment of children to commit illegal acts, added Sofya Lukinova, head of the legal Department of VMT Consult. It can also be using the card for dropping.
Fraudsters began to view children and teenagers not only as a source of access to their parents' money and accounts, but also as performers of dangerous tasks, said Deputy Chairman of the Council for the Development of the Digital Economy at the Federation Council, Senator Artem Sheikin.
— For this, they use psychological pressure, threats, blackmail, promises of earnings, or convince that the child allegedly helps law enforcement agencies, — he said. — There have been cases when teenagers were persuaded to set fire to ATMs and other facilities, and such actions posed a threat to others and to the children themselves.
Who are the scammers attacking
Scammers target children of all ages. A few days ago in Yekaterinburg, intruders tricked a teenager into handing them the keys to the house, and then stole currency and gold jewelry from there.
It started with the fact that a 13-year-old girl received a call allegedly from the delivery service and was asked to dictate the SMS code to receive the parcel.
Soon another "specialist" contacted her, this time disguised as an FSB officer. He claimed that his father's account at Gosuslugi and his bank accounts had been hacked. To "save" the money, the girl was transferred to a video call.
According to Valery Gorelykh, head of the press service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Sverdlovsk region, over the next week the child was under the full control of fraudsters. The girl was told that any disclosure of information would lead to "trouble for the whole family." As a result, she took and sent detailed photos of all the rooms of the house, and then she was forced to hand over the apartment keys.
On July 15, in the town of Nikolskoye in the Tosnensky district of the Leningrad Region, fraudsters forced a 12-year-old boy to attack a policeman with a knife. The child met a peer on social media and sent her his geolocation. Later, a man with a Ukrainian flag in the background contacted the teenager and said that his parents would be imprisoned for treason. Then the unidentified men, posing as FSB officers, convinced the student to attack a policeman who they allegedly considered a saboteur. The Investigative Committee has opened a criminal case under the article on encroachment on the life of a law enforcement officer.
And at the end of June, police detained a 13-year-old resident of Podolsk, suspected of deliberately setting fire to a fuel dispenser at one of the city's gas stations, said Irina Volk, an official representative of the Russian Interior Ministry.
During the interrogation, the teenager said that in one of the messengers he began to communicate with a girl. In the process of correspondence, the student sent her geolocation, arranging a meeting. Soon he was contacted by a man who introduced himself as the supervisor. The stranger stated that the received coordinates would be used to launch attacks by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and under threats he forced the boy to commit arson at a gas station.
On the fact of the incident, investigators opened a criminal case under Article 205 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation ("Terrorist act").
The law sets the age limit for responsibility of minors at 14 years, Sofya Lukinova recalled. Prior to this, the financial responsibility for the illegal actions of the child is borne by the parents or guardians.
"They have to compensate for the damage," she said. — After the age of 14, criminal liability begins for participating in a fraudulent scheme. At the same time, it is important for the court to what extent the child understood the degree of illegality of his actions. Malicious intent against a minor is difficult to prove in fact. Most often, the courts soften, prescribe compulsory parenting measures, and the family is placed on preventive register.
How to notice the influence of scammers on a child
In stories with scammers, it is important to understand that a child falls on their hook not because he is stupid, ill-mannered or lacks trust in the family, said Olga Kushnareva, a family psychologist and psychotherapist.
"Even in good families, children are often silent, especially teenagers," she explained. — They may trust their friends more, be afraid of punishment, be ashamed, believe that they will figure it out on their own, or not understand the scale of what happened. Therefore, parents should not live in the illusion that if we have a normal relationship, the child will definitely tell everything. Not necessarily at all.
Scammers, she says, exploit this particular vulnerability. First, they involve the child through what they are interested in, then they ask them to hide communication from adults, and then they include fear and urgency. As a result, the child finds himself in a situation where he is both scared and ashamed, and it seems that there is no turning back.
The consequences can be not only financial, the psychologist added. In addition to losing money, the child runs the risk of blackmail, threats, extortion, guilt, and a strong fear of exposure. He may be forced to perform new actions over and over again: take his parents' phone, call the SMS code, send card details, install the application, click on the link, delete the correspondence.
"Sometimes children and teenagers are drawn into schemes that have not only financial, but also legal consequences," Olga Kushnareva said. — And the hardest thing here is that a child can remain silent until the last moment.
Parents should pay attention to changes in behavior, added Maria Todorova, a child and family psychologist and family development consultant.
— Increased secrecy when using the phone, a sharp desire to delete correspondence, anxiety after communicating on the Internet, and unwillingness to show the screen may become a reason to be wary. As well as sleep disorders, irritability, or, conversely, a depressed state," the psychologist noted.
According to Maria Todorova, prohibitions and punishments do not help in such situations. If a child has already been influenced by scammers, first of all he needs the support of adults and the restoration of a sense of security.
It is necessary to explain to the child: a stranger does not have the right to ask for a code, money, documents, to carry out an assignment, to set fire to or damage something, Artem Sheikin emphasized. With such threats, you should immediately stop communicating, do not delete correspondence and contact adults.
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