AI expert reveals methods of involving children in fraudulent schemes

Fraudsters are more likely to use children in criminal schemes to extort money. Yuri Silaev, head of the Laboratory of Trusted Artificial Intelligence (AI) at RTU MIREA, warned about this on Tuesday, December 2.

According to the expert, the attackers can impersonate intelligence officers and extort money from minors. Masquerading as children's peers, criminals create fake profiles, form trusting relationships with the child, while collecting information about his family, daily routine and environment.

"This allows them to obtain personal information, which later becomes a tool for blackmail and manipulation in order to extort money," he said in a conversation with Lenta.Ru .

The expert added that after receiving personal data, fraudsters charge the child with disclosing state secrets or helping criminals. They can pass off the sent geolocation of an ordinary shopping center as a secret object, and interpret the correspondence as "transmitting information to foreign intelligence services."

Fraudsters show fake IDs and use legal terminology to give their actions the appearance of legality. They threaten the child with criminal prosecution of the parents, and forbid them to inform them about anything.

Silaev explained that after intimidating a child, the attackers force them to transfer money through an online bank or receive cash at a terminal under the pretext of closing the case or saving the parents from prison, and if they resist, they increase the pressure by threatening to kill family members.

School squall: hackers targeted teenagers at the beginning of the school year

In two weeks of September, 1.4 billion attempts to switch to malicious resources were blocked in Russia.

On November 29, the Russian Interior Ministry told how a child can recognize fraudsters. The department clarified that when communicating with children, fraudsters use the same manipulation techniques as with adults, but they are more often represented by employees of educational organizations, RT reports.

A child can recognize a phone fraudster by the following phrases: "you urgently need to transfer money, don't tell anyone," "parents are in trouble, help right now," according to the website. kp.ru .

Malefactors also often require children to provide their parents' bank card number or text message code. Life.Ru .

Earlier, on September 14, the Ministry of Internal Affairs reported that the main tools of scammers to involve children and teenagers in criminal activities were closed chats, job offer channels and "recruiting bots" in the Telegram messenger. Social networks VKontakte, Odnoklassniki, and game chats are also dangerous platforms.

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