The Baltics came out with a single fraud – Newspaper Kommersant No. 167 (7368) of 09/10/2022

In the first half of the year, fraudulent “call centers”, which at the beginning of the military operation in Ukraine, reduced their activity, began to use IP telephony more often, as a result of which the number of such calls from abroad to Russia increased, and traffic goes mainly through the Baltic states, according to in cybersecurity companies. However, according to experts, the legislative measures already taken to control calls from spoof numbers should reduce their number. In July and August, five operators were fined for missing such calls.

During the first half of the year, the number of fraudulent calls to Russia, both made via cellular communications and via the Internet, increased tenfold compared to the same period last year, Informzashita calculated. After the start of the military operation in Ukraine, “call centers” moved to the west of Ukraine and began to call Russians more often via Internet telephony (via IP), explains the interlocutor of “Kommersant” in a large Russian IT company. “But such calls require additional traffic, which is now coming from the Baltics,” continues the Kommersant source. Informzashchita registers fraudulent calls from Germany and Poland, a small increase from Georgia.

Irina Levova, director of strategic projects at the Internet Research Institute, believes that the tenfold increase in traffic is incorrect: “Statistics show growth year on year, but IP protocols have previously been used to deliver fraudulent traffic to entry points to the telephone network.” Due to the use of IP traffic, it is difficult to determine its origin, but most of it comes from the Baltic countries, she agrees.

In the first month after the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine, experts noted a decrease in the number of fraudulent calls: by 42% from February 24 to March 23 (see Kommersant on April 18). “In the spring, call centers had to rebuild the processes associated with cashing out and withdrawing money,” says Pavel Krylov, head of the Group-IB anti-fraud unit. The decrease in the number of fraudulent calls from abroad also happened due to the fact that since the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine, Russian banks began to actively subscribe to the services of telecom operators to prevent voice fraud, adds the interlocutor of Kommersant in the cybersecurity market: “At the same time, part of the call centers “was destroyed, and part of the employees of the Centers for Information and Psychological Special Operations of Ukraine, who participated in telephone fraud, switched from the financial topic to other tasks in wartime conditions.”

The activity of the attackers recovered by the summer (see Kommersant of June 22).

MTS reported that thanks to anti-fraud measures, the number of fraudulent calls on the operator’s network has decreased several times since the beginning of the year to a minimum level. MegaFon, Vimpelcom and Tele2 did not comment on the situation. The Interior Ministry did not respond to a request.

The state has already connected the Prosecutor General’s Office and the FSB to strengthen control over the substitution of numbers. The checks will also include non-fulfillment by operators of requirements for the passage of traffic from abroad (see Kommersant of September 5). Amendments to the law “On Communications”, obliging operators to transmit the number of the called subscriber unchanged (for voice calls, SMS and IP telephony calls), were adopted back in 2017. In August, the French Orange Business Services (LLC Orange Business Services) became the first operator to be fined for violations. The penalty amounted to 1 million rubles. In August, it also became known that Roskomnadzor would receive 1.88 billion rubles from the budget. on the creation of systems for blocking fraudulent calls from spoofed telephone numbers and for monitoring the verification of subscriber data by operators.

Legislative initiatives are enough to create a “single system of pressure on unscrupulous market players,” Irina Levova is sure. There is already judicial practice, she points out: “In addition to Orange, in July and August, small providers MT Techno, NTSI Telecom, MTR-Svyaz, Nauka-Svyaz were also fined for passing traffic from spoof numbers 200 thousand to 600 thousand rubles.”

Tatiana Isakova, Yulia Tishina