Fraudsters appoint Russians as administrators of dangerous channels for the purpose of blackmail

The attackers have come up with a new scheme of manipulation in social networks: They unilaterally grant users the rights of an administrator of media channels, after which they try to blackmail them with criminal liability for illegal content that has already been published. This was reported to Izvestia by a source who received the relevant notification.

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"The previous owner of the channel <...> transferred the rights to it to you. Now you are the new owner of this channel and are responsible for the content of its publications," the message says.

According to the source, the channel was small, but with criminal and military themes, including materials with signs of violations of the law.

As Konstantin Parfenyev, an expert in the field of cybersecurity, commented to Izvestia, in this way attackers manipulate people who do not understand administration — they can be intimidated by bringing them to civil, administrative or even criminal responsibility.

Read more in the Izvestia article:

Chat Peak: why scammers make Russians channel administrators

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