OREANDA-NEWS During the New Year holidays in Russia, there is traditionally an increase in the activity of telephone scammers in order to extort money. For this reason, citizens should remain vigilant and not be led to the tricks of intruders, said Vladimir Kaplin, head of the Design office of the First Bit company. His words are quoted by Prime.

The expert warned that on the eve of the New Year and during the long holidays in early January, scammers actively use a popular scheme to extort money under the guise of mobile operators. Scammers offer citizens to extend the SIM card agreement and scare them that in case of refusal of the service, the victim's phone will stop working.

In some cases, the analyst clarified, attackers prefer to change the tactics of deception and pose as bank employees, trying to get passwords from personal accounts in online banking applications and from the Public Services service. At the same time, it should be remembered that banks do not need detailed information about the accounts or cards of Russians at all — employees of financial organizations can get all the necessary information in the internal banking system, Kaplin concluded.

Earlier, VTB analysts warned about a similar scheme of telephone intruders. According to them, in recent years, scammers have often begun to call Russians under the guise of mobile operators or bank employees in order to gain access to clients' personal accounts. At the same time, as VTB clarified, such a scheme is relatively new, which significantly increases the level of risks for potential victims, since the latter have not yet had time to properly familiarize themselves with this type of fraudulent tricks.