Ministry of Internal Affairs: the number of thefts in Runet has doubled

In Russia, in 2014, 11 thousand crimes in the field of telecommunications and computer information were registered, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation said. Moreover, the number of thefts using Internet technologies doubled, TASS reports.

Alarm statistics were brought by the head of the Bureau of Special Technical Events of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia Alexei Moshkov, who spoke at the Infoforum-2015.

“The main motive for committing (crimes) is the desire to extract material benefits,” explained Alexei Moshkov. “In 2013, theft and fraud amounted to 30 percent of all registered crimes in the information sphere, acting as an unconditional leader in this category.”

In 2014, their share was already 41 percent. “Moreover, if the number of registered fraud has not changed much, then the number of thefts has doubled,” the police representative added.

According to him, Internet services, providing advertising or communication services, attract potential victims and criminals. Moreover, attackers are easy to maintain their anonymity.

"The current situation is a serious threat, discredit the network business and undermines users' trust in electronic payments," said Alexei Moshkov.

Recently, criminals began to widely use mobile platforms as a means of obtaining confidential information. First of all, harmful programs focused on the theft of funds from bank accounts using a mobile bank system are used. However, cases were recorded when attackers controlled other people's devices using remote access.

“In addition, attackers successfully use new services and technologies for mobile devices for their own purposes, wrapping their functionality against their owners. Most of modern smartphones and tablets use reference to the account, and often store data in cloud services,” said Alexey Moshkov.

Having gained access to the user account, attackers can download the lists of subscriber contacts, photos and videos, information about his correspondence, movements data, block the device as lost or stolen. Sometimes cybec ramps gain access to bank cards and passwords with accounts in various services. This information is used to theft of funds and blackmail, concluded Moshkov.