Attackers have come up with a new way to deceive Russians. They pose as bank or government officials and ask to be given a bank card, supposedly for verification. This was reported by VTB.
VTB specialists have identified a new social engineering scheme — fraudsters, posing as employees of banks or government agencies, convince the interlocutor to give them a bank card for its "verification." As a result, victims lose not only their own funds, but also become involuntary intermediaries (drops) in withdrawing money from other victims.
Fraudsters call Russians and pretend to be employees of financial organizations or law enforcement agencies. They report alleged unauthorized transactions, a loan taken out, or a threat to the account, and demand that the victim provide the card's PIN code and hand it over to a fake courier. The attackers claim that this is necessary to verify the authenticity of the card, install protection, or cancel the card's binding to the account. They may ask you to say the PIN code over the phone, dial it on the phone, or enter it on a special website via a link.
Then the fraudsters withdraw the victim's money through an ATM using the received PIN code. They use the card to cash out funds from other people. The victim not only loses their money, but also becomes part of a criminal scheme.
It is important to understand: when you hand over the card to the "bank courier" and provide codes from SMS, you are not just risking your money, but involuntarily becoming a link in a criminal scheme. Fraudsters deliberately choose tactics so that the victim, without realizing it, participates in cashing out funds from other victims.
He also emphasized that in case of compromise of a bank card, it is necessary to quickly block it. This can be done by contacting the bank's contact center by phone or using online banking.
Revyakin added that the banking sector is actively countering droppers, complicating the activities of fraudsters. In 2024, more than 148 thousand droppers were identified, which is 5.5 times more than in 2023. Over the year, VTB prevented the theft of more than 1.5 billion rubles from customers. Over two years, more than 380 million rubles were returned to victims from droppers' accounts.
The Central Bank is considering introducing a limit on the number of bank cards that can be issued to one person. The measure is aimed at combating drops and will not affect bona fide customers.
Earlier, Beeline and Alfa-Bank launched cooperation between their support services. If the operator determines that a fraudster is calling the client, it immediately transfers the call to the bank's support service.
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