The Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs is once again asking Hamster Kombat users to be vigilant. Those who are engaged in "tapping the hamster" in the popular application are having their Telegram accounts stolen en masse.
According to cyber police officers from the Department for Combating Illegal Use of Information and Communication Technologies of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, scammers are writing to crypto investors. They say that virtual money from the game can supposedly "now be easily withdrawn." Then the victim is "sent a link to a phishing resource, after which the 'tappers' lose access to their account."
The official token launch has not yet occurred, although it was announced in early July by Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram, on the Telegram Open Network (TON) blockchain. That is, it is technically impossible to turn the game's millions of coins into rubles or other real currency.
Kaspersky Lab is also raising the alarm. According to cybersecurity specialists, in the first half of 2024, compared to the same period in 2023, Russians are almost 22% more likely to try to log in to fraudulent resources that mimic Telegram. One of the common methods of scammers is exactly what the Ministry of Internal Affairs is talking about.
The company's specialists discovered a scheme in which scammers send Russian users links to a phishing resource for authorization in the service. Through it, you can supposedly withdraw coins from the sensational game Hamster Kombat and transfer them to rubles.
However, to do this, you need to log in to Telegram — enter your credentials on the page that opens. In fact, attackers steal access to personal accounts in the messenger in this way.
The goal of phishers is to extract the phone number and confirmation code. The attackers can use the obtained access to accounts for various purposes, including stealing confidential data, blackmail, and sending fraudulent messages to the contact list.
To protect your Telegram account, security experts advise:
- set up two-factor authentication;
- do not follow links from suspicious messages, even if they come from your acquaintances;
- use a reliable security solution on all your devices that would prevent attempts to go to a phishing page.
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