May 19, 2020

Phishing within the Pandemic


Phishing within the Pandemic
Russians have to protect their cybersecurity. Image by PickPik

While many Russians are using quarantine to clean, read books, or watch TV, some are dealing with far more serious problems. Phishing websites have sucked in unwitting Russians with a credit history scamming scheme, according to the National Credit History Bureau.

According to the Bureau’s marketing director, Alexey Volkov, “People make thousands of searches every month and those lead them to phishing websites that offer to provide credit history fast and inexpensively. To that end, a user must enter his personal data into a form and pay the money – only R299. Many websites offer to improve a person's credit history, but that is much more expensive – R10,000 to R300,000.”

Volkov reported a 70% increase in traffic to fake websites. He believes this is due to reduced incomes during the pandemic. Forbes reported that many new fake domains have appeared amid the coronavirus pandemic.

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