Expert gives advice to Russians to avoid personal data leakage

When it comes to the protection of personal data, one can distinguish the danger of data leakage and compromise directly, and the further actions of attackers when they commit criminal acts with the help of this data, said Sarkis Shmavonyan, manager of work with educational organizations at Cyberprotect. He told Izvestia what to do to avoid the consequences of personal data leaks.

According to the expert, it should be recognized that it is advisable to proceed from the fact that the data of almost every citizen has already been compromised. Analysis of such databases demonstrates the compromise of full name, contact details, often passport and financial data, and a number of others. Attackers have more than enough data to realize several attack vectors at once. Among such actions are targeted phishing attacks and fraud. In this case, con artists use data to gain the trust of the victim. For example, they send e-mails prepared for a particular user or messages containing links to fake websites, the specialist said.

"Having seen their personal data in the message, perhaps the presence of subscriptions to various services that may have been compromised or something else familiar and trustworthy, the user follows the link, and then the scenario is typical: if the user enters his personal data on such a site, attackers will have access to this information and can use it for fraud," Shmavonyan said

He noted that the same applies to phone calls, in which the attacker, possessing the victim's personal data, gains the victim's trust and receives a "code from SMS" or other information necessary to commit a crime. Phishing attacks account for the majority of such crimes.

Another scenario is identity theft or forgery. Scammers can use personal data from databases to open accounts and loans in someone else's name, receive social benefits or apply for loans.

"Such databases are a valuable source of data for document forgery. But in the age of artificial intelligence technologies, such data opens up a dangerous vector of "deepfake" and voicefake (images and voices of the victim) of people's identities. Such a scenario requires not only a photo and voice sample of a person, but also some context, including the person's personal details. Attackers can use identity fraud both to deceive the victim's loved ones and to act on behalf of the victim in the same financial institutions," Shmavonyan explained.

Another option is stealing other people's accounts. Having information about users, the attacker can make attempts to hack into their accounts in social networks, e-mail systems. Forging documents, criminals try to issue new SIM-cards with the victim's phone number to compromise accounts, including government systems, overcoming two-factor authentication systems, the expert pointed out.

In addition, fraudsters can use personal data from databases to create fake accounts on various platforms, such as social networks or online marketplaces. This will allow them to conduct phishing attacks or other types of fraud, gaining the trust of the victim's contacts on these platforms or acting on someone else's behalf for their own benefit, the expert said.

The expert advised, to avoid the consequences of personal data leaks, to regularly change passwords from their accounts, most importantly - to use different passwords for different accounts.

"Install two-factor authentication on all significant accounts: government services, e-mail and messengers and others, where possible. Monitor your credit history to make sure your data hasn't been used for fraud or identity theft. Be careful with emails and messages. Don't click on links in emails and messages unless you are sure they are trustworthy," he recommended.

He said anti-virus programs should also be used on all devices from which network communication and access to the Net is conducted, and one should keep them updated.

"Keep an eye on the news and use services to check for data breaches. Use a separate bank card for making payments on the Web and do not keep funds on it unless you plan to spend them immediately," Shmavonyan concluded.

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Earlier, on November 17, Evgeny Pankov, project manager of the .RU/.RF domain coordination center, told Izvestia that there has been a steady increase in phishing attacks conducted via messengers, especially Telegram and WhatsApp (owned by Meta, whose activities are banned in Russia). According to him, 2,374 domains imitating Telegram were blocked in Runet in the first 10 months of this year, which is 2.2 times higher than the same period last year. For the second messenger, the number of blocked domains increased more than five times - from 205 to 1,036.