Experts named popular fraudulent schemes in WhatsApp

Information security experts have named the most popular types of fraud in the messenger WhatsApp (owned by Meta, a company whose activities are recognized as extremist and banned in Russia).

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Russians have started receiving emails about an "unknown virus" with malicious links.

Among the most common are calls or messages on behalf of allegedly employees of banks, civil services or company executives. The scheme works like this: fraudsters contact the victim via messenger with a request to "check the security of accounts so that they are not stolen" or "confirm the data", Igor Bederov, director of Internet Search, told Izvestia. To do this, attackers often use leaked data of victims on the Web, for example, in a conversation call their passport information to increase trust.

"If fraudsters contact the victim through messages, they most often contain phishing links to fake websites. They may also ask to pass codes from SMS," the expert explained.

Also among the popular schemes are calls from allegedly employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, hacking profiles and using them for mass mailings, requests from "friends" to urgently transfer money, as well as phishing links under the guise of lucrative offers from companies.

According to the .RU/.RF Coordination Center, the number of fraud cases in WhatsApp for the first three months of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024 increased six times.

WhatsApp, despite its widespread popularity among Russians, remains the last massively used service from Meta, a company recognized as extremist in Russia, Duma deputy Anton Nemkin said. At the same time, the messenger itself continues to ignore the requirements of Russian law in terms of data localization, cooperation with law enforcement agencies and transparency in the fight against cyber threats, he added. This is what creates a zone of digital vulnerability, where fraudsters feel most comfortable, summarized the parliamentarian.

Read more in the exclusive material of Izvestia:

A foe's call: the most popular fraudulent schemes in WhatsApp are named