Russians were warned about fraudsters calling children under the guise of school staff

Scammers have invented a new way to deceive children by starting to call them on behalf of alleged school employees or the "electronic diary support service." Maria Lvova–Belova, the Presidential Commissioner for Children's Rights, warned about this on May 20.

She said that the attackers' goal was to get an SMS code so that they could have access to the student's diary document.

"The child receives a call allegedly from the school or the electronic diary support service and is asked to name the code from an SMS. <...> After receiving the code, the attackers gain access to the child's accounts — the electronic diary, Public Services and other services," the ombudsman said in her Telegram channel.

She added that scammers actively use the topics of deception related to the Unified State Exam and the BSE. In particular, they send fake links as if to "check for an exam pass" and also offer to buy "answers and exam materials." In addition, fraudsters can present themselves as employees of examination boards and urgently demand to "confirm the data," Lvova-Belova summed up.

"They are intimidated into not allowing exams if the child does not provide the SMS code or does not follow the link. They create fake accounts of schools, teachers and "official" school communities on social networks, copying photos and names of real pages," she added.

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The attackers are taking advantage of Russians' interest in schedules from housing and communal services employees

On February 19, Senator Artem Sheikin, Deputy Chairman of the Council for the Development of the Digital Economy at the Federation Council (SF), suggested that information on ways to recognize fraudsters for teenagers should be published in short video format (reels), since this is the most popular type of content consumption among schoolchildren.

The senator stressed that children and teenagers have been increasingly becoming targets of intruders lately, and this topic should be the subject of active discussion in their own environment.