— Where they are very visible, but at the same time their placement is difficult to control — on the walls of buildings, in entrances, at bus stops, in parking lots, other public places and other the only entry point to the pro32 newsletter objects of the greatest concentration of people. This is not a new way of interacting with city residents — earlier, for example, advertisements with phone numbers were often placed on the asphalt. The use of chatbots inspires additional trust in people, creating the feeling of the work of an automatic service of some official department.
— Messengers are increasingly used in fraudulent
schemes. For example, last year banks recorded that criminals began calling Russians using messengers instead of mobile communications. Does the Bank of Russia see risks in the development of such technologies?
— Such risks exist. Fraudsters have used instant messengers for voice calls before. Another thing is that now such calls are an upward trend. Fraudsters are forced to switch to this method of contact, because it is increasingly difficult to use regular telephone communication. Mobile operators are obliged to counter fraudulent calls, anti-spam services are in place, which are also promoted by banks.
Despite the surge in fraudsters’ interest in popular
messengers, their main channel is still a phone call. We are actively the industry-specific program fighting these cybercriminals. For example, in 2022, according to preliminary data, we initiated the blocking of more ao lists than 750 thousand numbers, which is more than four times higher than the data for the previous year. This is the highest figure since 2019, when we began working with telecom operators to block such numbers.