Russians were warned about the intensification of scammers during the holidays

MOSCOW, January 2 Fraudster activity increases during the New Year holidays, and one of the most popular schemes is sending phishing emails with advertising offers or notifications from supposedly reliable sources : famous brands, banks or government agencies, said Sergey Lipov, director of information technology at EdgeCenter.
«During the holidays, the intensity of fraudulent activity increases significantly. One of the most popular schemes is phishing mailings — this is when attackers send letters, for example, with advertising offers or notifications as if from reliable sources. They create letters that imitate official correspondence with well-known brands, banks or even government agencies,» Lipov said.

The main goal of scammers is to steal data, including logins, passwords and financial information. To do this, they use various methods, including sending letters offering to buy tickets to Christmas trees or to the theater at discounted prices. The link provided in such a message usually leads to a fake website that imitates the real one.

Phishing emails may contain all logos and even signatures similar to the original ones. Typically, such mailings report “urgent” problems that require the user’s attention here and now, or “limited” special offers.

The expert noted that scammers recently launched a mass mailing campaign, taking advantage of the fact that the Bolshoi Theater resumed selling tickets for the Nutcracker performance. They created a phishing page to steal the personal information users entered. It is noteworthy that the address of the website created by the scammers differed from the real one by only one letter — the word bolshoi on the fake page was written as bolshoy.
Lipov advises to treat any information from emails carefully and critically. To reduce the risk of phishing attacks, you should ignore unknown senders, do not open links provided in letters, and do not believe in too favorable terms in them. It is important to make sure that the site address in the browser is correct, and for greater reliability, install an anti-virus program.