Scammers have learned to bot

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Information from Telegram began to be used for blackmail

Internet scammers began to use the personal data of Russians who collect special bots in the Telegram messenger for blackmail. They extort money by threatening to hack into an account or disclose information about a person's online activities to his family and colleagues. Paying for such claims does not guarantee that the victim will no longer be blackmailed, experts warn. In the near future, businesses that collect open data about people on the Internet are also at risk of extortion: the reason may be new data protection legislation.

Fraudsters began to collect information to blackmail Internet users from Telegram bots, security experts told Kommersant.

For example, LeakCheck's MailSearchBot, which was originally created to check leaked passwords, became a source of information for fraudsters, says Alexei Drozd, head of the information security department at SearchInform.
For a fee, the service invites the user to find their logins and passwords by the phone number, which were in the public domain. Despite the fact that part of the password is hidden in the free version of the bot, fraudsters use this data to blackmail users by e-mail, explained Mr. Drozd: "The victims are encouraged to pay so that their data is not disclosed to friends, relatives or colleagues."

LeakCheck is aware of such cases, the company confirmed to Kommersant. “Most often, scammers write to victims that a virus has got on their computer and all actions on the network are recorded, and for confirmation they attach the last used password,” LeakCheck says. The company claims that MailSearchBot does not store the history of requests, so it is impossible for scammers to contact it.

Limiting the number of requests to the bot will not help in the fight against fraudsters, since, if desired, it will be possible to bypass it by changing the account, ”LeakCheck said.

Criminals can introduce themselves as the security service of the service, offer to change the compromised password and ultimately gain full access to the account, says Igor Bederov, founder of the Internet Search company. “Usually people are worried about the safety of their photos and correspondence, so they open such fraudulent letters and believe them,” the expert explains.

Such Telegram bots belong to open source intelligence tools, the popularity of which is growing both among ordinary users and among scammers, Mr. Drozd notes. In 2020, Telegram has intensified the creation of bots that allow the user of the messenger to get information about almost any person ( see "Kommersant" from February 19 ).

Among the oldest and largest are the "Eye of God", "Archangel", Smart_SearchBot and AVinfoBot. The services use data that is already in the public domain, so the principle of their operation can be compared to a search engine, says Alexander Dvoryansky, Director of Strategic Communications at Infosecurity a Softline Company.

Obviously, if a person has been using the same password for many years, sooner or later he will become a victim of malefactors, says Mr. Dvoryansky.
But if you are being blackmailed by disclosing your personal data, you should not believe that after transferring the requested money to the fraudsters, they will stop blackmailing, warns Anton Dolgalev, Deputy Head of the Department of Protection against Digital Risks at Group-IB.

In 2021, fraudsters will have even more excuses for blackmail, Mr. Bederov believes. The stimulus, in his opinion, may be the bill on the regulation of publicly available personal data, adopted at the end of last year. In accordance with it, businesses are prohibited from collecting information about people from social networks without their direct consent, even when the person's profile was open ( see "Kommersant" from December 23, 2020 ). Such a measure, according to Mr. Bederov, could provoke a wave of extortionate messages on behalf of allegedly subjects of personal data addressed to businesses. The expert believes that cybercriminals will begin, in particular, sending out fake letters with fines for violating new legal requirements.

Yulia Stepanova

A source

 

[Kiril Harchevnikov]

Interesting post! Thanks!

 

[Turdubaev Dastan]

That is, the bot can collect your data? What is it like? There are bots for making money, in which you must enter your wallets and cards for withdrawal. Probably like this

 

[David Mamedov]

They just evolve)

 

[David Mamedov]

То есть, бот может собирать ваши данные? Это как? Есть боты для заработка, в которых ты для вывода должен ввести свои кошельки и карты. Наверно вот так

Наверно, это бот, который находит данные в других соц сетях

 

[Частный детектив. Москва.]

Helpful post!

 

[alexsey1417]

and they are developing very strongly.

 

[Детективное агентство Одесса]

They've learned a lot

 

[Детективное агентство Одесса]

а они развиваются очень сильно.

Согласен.

 

[Alexander Konovalenko.]

Thanks for the helpful post.