The Interior Ministry warned about the imitation of calls from the heads of regions using deepfakes

Fraudsters use deepfakes to simulate calls on behalf of the heads of Russian regions and other government representatives. This was announced on July 8 by the Department for the organization of the fight against the illegal use of information and communication technologies (UBK) of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia.

It clarifies that scammers create accounts in messengers and impersonate the heads of Russian regions, representatives of regional legislative and executive authorities, as well as heads of local governments. On their behalf, attackers can use deepfake technologies to simulate a short video call followed by complaints about allegedly poor communication quality.

"Next, the criminal warns about an important conversation with law enforcement agencies, after which, under the pretext of checking the secrecy and revealed facts of financing illegal organizations, psychological pressure will be exerted on the citizen in order to force him to give money to criminals," the department's Telegram channel says.

The thought stops: who becomes a courier for scammers and why

These people are often the only ones responsible for crimes.

The day before, the UBK of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia reported on fraudsters' attempts to circumvent a person's caution and force him to voluntarily download a malicious APK file to an Android device. It was clarified that the attackers ask to download a malicious file under the guise of a telecom operator, and also urge to change the data in the banking application due to a change in the number or tariff.