At the information security company Infosecurity a Softline Company, socialbites.ca reported a new wave of scams in dating apps. According to the company, 17 fake websites of cafes, restaurants, hookahs, theaters, museums and other places where you can go on a date are popping up on Runet in just one day.
This time, IT professionals became the target of cybercriminals – in parallel with phishing sites, profiles of girls who wanted to meet “IT experts” began to appear massively on Tinder, and we are not just talking about programmers and information security specialists. , but also IT designers or system administrators.
“We have been recording the appearance of such surveys for the past three weeks. Such a scam can be found on any dating site. Its target is wealthy people and IT workers “new businessmen”. Scammers are tempted by the level of their salary. Also, do not forget about government support for IT professionals, in particular tax incentives, low mortgage rates and grants for promising developments.
The scheme looks like this: An attacker posing as a user on a dating site invites a person to go to the cinema or theater and sends a link to supposedly buy tickets.
“When a user enters their debit card information on this site, the scammer disappears. In another scheme, the attacker may pose as a person living in another city and allegedly does not have enough money to come to the meeting. The attacker also disappears from the radar after the victim transfers money for travel, Kaspersky Lab content analyst Olga Svistunova told socialbites.ca.
At the same time, Infosecurity a Softline Company noted that the amount of damage can vary significantly. In the most unfavorable scenario, the victim bank has a chance to lose access to the customer’s personal account.
“A person enters a phone number, a card number, a code from SMS, and it turns out that this code is not a confirmation of payment, but a confirmation of entering his personal account. It’s a very popular plan,” Trukhachev explained.
RTK-Solar Solar webProxy business architect Anastasia Khveshenik says that surveys that may be scammers often contain one or two photos, and these photos typically depict girls with model-like appearances.
“Often in correspondence, scammers constantly try to relay communication to the messenger, since dating apps track suspicious activity and block scammers’ accounts,” Khvechenik said. In his opinion, the attackers will not waste time with long conversations about life, but will try to move on to the main issue – a date as soon as possible.
According to Trukhachev, situations where someone tries to exploit people’s feelings, feelings or interests are the basis of online fraud.
“Attackers first manipulate people’s emotions, adapt to their victims, tell them what they want to hear. And if we are talking about a meeting with a pretty girl with the appearance of a model, then everyone can forget about the rules of cybersecurity, ”explained the expert.
Pavel Kovalenko, director of the Informzaschita anti-fraud center, is sure that absolutely everyone, regardless of education and awareness level, falls into the tricks of cyber crooks.
“Criminals use “right” approaches to different segments of the population by manipulating people’s emotions, disrupting critical thinking processes. This is how social engineering works. For some, the principle of fear and panic “works”, someone is “caught” by quick profit bait or risk loss, and someone falls for human relations and dating. IT professionals are the people with whom it is possible to get your key, ”said Kovalenko.
And even with good training, “experience” in the digital environment, information security experts are breaking their own rules, knowing that you should not follow suspicious links.
“It is necessary to check the received links and sites where you enter information about your payment data – often fake sites have similar addresses where visually similar letters are substituted, for example, I to i. It should also be noted that tickets cannot cost less than their nominal value. Also, in no case can you transfer money in advance, because there is no confirmation that this will help you get what you want, ”explained Pavel Kovalenko, director of the Informzaschita anti-fraud center.