Fraudsters began offering bank customers bonuses for vaccinations

VTB has discovered a new scam trick in which attackers offer bonuses for vaccinations to their victims. The purpose of fraud is to find out card details and steal money. Gazprombank and Kaspersky Lab are aware of the same scheme, their representatives told RBC.

Fraudsters are spreading announcements on social networks about bonuses in the amount of 5 thousand rubles, which are allegedly paid to VTB customers (a similar announcement was discovered by an RBC correspondent) in case of vaccination. The announcements do not specify which vaccine they are talking about, but they appeared during the mandatory vaccination period for some categories of citizens against a new CORONAVIRUS infection. “Against the background of the situation with the spread of coronavirus infection, attackers are creating new scenarios to deceive customers. One of them was false information about supposedly promised bonuses to bank customers for vaccination. We urge people to be vigilant and carefully check such announcements,” says Dmitry Revyakin, HEAD of the corporate interests protection department of the VTB security department.

Similar announcements were also found by Kaspersky Lab specialists. “A person allegedly on behalf of the bank is offered a payment or a bonus for being vaccinated against coronavirus. If a user clicks on a link in an ad, they are taken to a page where they are asked to enter personal data (full name, phone number) and bank card details, which are then sent to attackers,” Anton Yatsenko, a content analyst at Kaspersky Lab, told RBC. As a result, scammers gain access to the victim's funds.

The specified phishing scheme in various interpretations is distributed in social networks and mobile messengers, Alexey Pleshkov, Deputy Head of the Information Security Department of Gazprombank, confirmed to RBC. He recalled that fraudsters also distribute advertisements for the sale of fake vaccination certificates or for the provision of services for entering information about a fictitious vaccination fact into a single database of vaccinated citizens. According to Kaspersky Lab, 14% more coronavirus-related fraudulent resources were detected and blocked in June 2021 than in May.

MKB, Rosbank and Otkritie have not encountered such schemes in relation to their clients. “This is another example of how scammers are quickly integrated into the news agenda, using relevant newsbreaks. The main countermeasure tool here is informing the banks of their customers and the vigilance of people,” says Vyacheslav Kasimov, DIRECTOR of the information security department of the MKB.