Experts warned about fraudulent schemes due to mobile communication failures

In Moscow and the Moscow Region, cases of telephone fraud related to possible mobile communication failures have become more frequent, the press service of the Association for the Development of Financial Literacy told Izvestia on May 8.

The attackers pose as employees of the operators and offer subscribers a "free service" that supposedly ensures stable operation of the phone during the period of possible restrictions from May 7 to May 11.

"Residents of the Moscow region, including one woman who was in Nizhny Novgorod, received calls allegedly on behalf of a telecom operator. They offered to connect a "special service" for uninterrupted communication, and then asked to enter the sent SMS code on a fake website," the press service said.

Scammers send a link disguising it as official resources, such as "Public Services" or HeadHunter.

"In both cases, the attackers emphasized that the code should not be communicated to anyone over the phone, even to them. This reduces the victim's vigilance," the experts explained.

Experts warn that such schemes may become more active in the coming days amid possible communication failures.

"In any case, do not enter codes or click on suspicious links. Real operators are not asked to verify data through third—party sites," the experts urged.

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Earlier, on May 5, there were disruptions in the operation of mobile communications and the Internet for T2, MTS and Beeline operators. Beeline had the largest number of complaints — more than 3.1 thousand and MTS — more than 2.1 thousand. In addition, failures were found in the work of banking applications, including Alfa-Bank and VTB.