Fraudsters began to take revenge for the draws, said Kaspersky

MOSCOW, 8 Sep — PRIME. Phone scammers have begun to take revenge on the Russians, who play pranks on them in response to calls: their numbers are now used as substitutes for new scams, said Sergei Golovanov, chief expert at Kaspersky Lab.

“This year, another trend has emerged: attackers began to take revenge on those users who, in response, try to play a trick on the caller or swear at him. The phone numbers of such people can later be used as substitutes for calls. As a result, victims of attackers with demands to return the money,” he told RIA Novosti.

The problem of telephone fraud remains extremely acute: according to a study by the “Laboratory”, more than 40% of Russians received calls from scammers in the second quarter of this year, and in just the first half of the year 97% of users received various spam calls.

The peak of activity of swindlers in the first half of the year fell on June: this month, 28.5% of users received calls from suspicious numbers.

In addition, users of the application from Kaspersky Lab note that most often spam calls are either robotic or scammers pretend to be law enforcement officers. The largest number of complaints about fraud under the latter scheme was recorded in August, said Vladimir Grigoriev, an analyst at Kaspersky Who Calls.

“Intruders can try some schemes, abandon them and switch to others if they prove to be more effective. We see that now there is a trend to return to the already tested legend with calls from supposedly representatives of law enforcement agencies … Usually, attackers act very confidently, they report to the subscriber that it is necessary to assist the investigation, and the call itself will be recorded,” he explained.