Cybersecurity in Ukraine: new fraud schemes and how to protect yourself
Kyiv • UNN
The Cyberpolice of Ukraine named five most common types of online fraud, including non-delivery of goods after prepayment and pseudo-bank calls. Cybersecurity expert Kostiantyn Korsun emphasized the importance of increasing cyber literacy among the population to protect against fraudsters.
For Ukrainians, cybersecurity has always been a pressing issue. It is especially painful during a full-scale war, when citizens need to be particularly vigilant, and fraudsters come up with new schemes to deceive. What are the most common types of online fraud now and is it possible to counter them - a UNN journalist found out.
Online Fraud Schemes
According to the cyber police, currently the most common types of online fraud are five:
- Non-delivery of goods after prepayment on online platforms. People often fall for such scams due to the very low prices offered to them.
- Pseudo-banking calls. Fraudsters use fears related to card blocking, money withdrawal, hacker attacks, or that the call was made to prevent "fraudsters who may call"..
- Requests for "fundraising". During the war, fraudsters very often use social networks for fictitious "fundraising for drones", "donations for cars" for a specific unit of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, or persistently ask for help for victims of military aggression.
- Fake charity fund pages. With the emergence of new charitable organizations, fraudsters resort to creating fake pages of real charitable foundations that allegedly collect funds to combat global disasters or epidemics.
- "Trump's payments" (payments from the IMF, international charitable foundations, etc.). Most often, fraudsters use well-known politicians, heads of state, to prey on their voters, who undoubtedly trust them and readily respond to "initiatives" of social assistance allegedly from them.
Cybersecurity expert Kostiantyn Korsun, in a comment to UNN, emphasized that the methods of online fraudsters are quite similar. They only change the so-called pretext. "Fraudsters take some fresh news that is most discussed, and under it they form their fraudulent request. For example, if you send shock content to a large number of subscribers, news like "ten minutes ago, a message from Moscow, Putin died, funeral tomorrow", and under this link embed malicious software," Korsun said.
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Online fraudsters actively use messenger accounts to carry out their operations. In this case, shock content is also used.
Fraudsters "hack" private accounts in messengers, this is a very common phenomenon. If they are hacked, then immediately all contacts are sent "you won a million", "attention, the end of the war in a month, the government has decided, there is an agreement", "Trump announced". Everything that is super relevant, everything that interests a large number of people
He pointed out that many people fall into such traps because there is no proper level of explanatory work among the population.
Ways to protect against fraud
Kostiantyn Korsun also explained that the state is not able to ensure the protection of smartphones or gadgets of ordinary citizens, because it is private property, to which it has no right. But the function of the state in such a situation is to teach citizens cyber literacy.
The state can do very little in the smartphone of every Ukrainian, because it is private property and everyone must be responsible for the security of their smartphone. But the state can teach. Teach, say, ten rules of personal cybersecurity. This could be done. If we had, say, a national cybersecurity agency, everyone would know that it is engaged in this and it would develop such a program and distribute it everywhere by all possible means. This could help
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According to the expert, increasing people's cyber literacy is the only thing that can be done in such a case. However, he also explained that the state is able to protect institutions that are under its direct subordination.
The state can only protect large information systems that are under its subordination - ministries, departments, state enterprises. Everything that is not state-owned, but only commercial, private - the state has no direct influence on this. It can only form policy. It can recommend, offer some courses, conduct training for journalists, for the military
At the same time, Korsun noted that individual attempts to raise public awareness of cybersecurity are being made, but these are very chaotic and localized actions that have little effect on the overall picture.
Explanatory work is being carried out, but chaotically, decentralized, locally. Go out into the street, ask people who in Ukraine is responsible for cyber protection - and two-thirds will answer that it is the Ministry of Digital Transformation, but this is not true. Few people know who the State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection is. Someone heard something about the cyber operations of the SBU and the Main Intelligence Directorate, but these are mostly offensive operations. There is no awareness, so that people would at least know which state institutions in our country are responsible for national cybersecurity
Protection against fraudsters: tips
The Cyber Police published a number of useful tips that will help Ukrainians avoid an unpleasant "acquaintance" with fraudsters.
First of all, the police explain, when choosing gifts for relatives and friends online, it should be remembered that fraudsters try to disguise themselves as much as possible as bona fide sellers. They post bright photos of goods on their resources, write positive fake reviews. To avoid becoming a victim of fraudsters, the cyber police advise, you should choose cash on delivery and follow safe shopping tips.
Dating apps and relevant websites are very popular among fraudsters. Usually, they use stolen photos of others in their profiles. One way to check this is to use Google's image search service.
One of the signs of communicating with a scammer is an offer to continue the conversation on another platform, especially one you haven't heard of before. Unlike well-known dating services, they may not have ways to detect online fraud.
Also, you should not follow suspicious links sent by a new acquaintance, and if you have already done so, you should not enter bank card details or other personal information on such resources.
Another "red flag" is a request to borrow money, which usually comes from a scammer some time after acquaintance. Constant excuses for not meeting should also be alarming. Canceling a date as such does not mean that you are dealing with a criminal, but if a person constantly refuses to meet, it should make you think.
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