On January 23, an All-Russian lesson on safe Internet took place for students in grades 5-9, organized by the National Center for Assistance to Missing and Injured Children together with the Safe Internet League, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia and the Ministry of Emergency Situations of the Russian Federation. Experts told students about media literacy; singer Shaman, journalist and blogger Yuri Podolyaka, pranksters Vovan and Lexus, Head of the Safe Internet League Ekaterina Mizulina and others also shared advice.
Director of the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ Andrey Vorobyev also addressed the All-Russian Safe Internet Lesson. He told students about new types of phishing, how to recognize fake sites and online stores using the Coordination Center service WHOIS+, and much more.
Andrey Vorobyev noted that phishing using fake government resources is becoming more popular among scammers. Thus, most often the websites of government agencies, municipalities, schools, social organizations, and the media are faked to spread false information.
“The landscape of fraudulent activities has changed. Previously, there were phishing attacks, which we are used to, when they were only trying to get money and access to electronic wallets. Among the fresh, new types of phishing, this is an attempt at “state phishing,” when the resources of government agencies, municipalities, schools, social organizations, and the media are falsified in order to convey false information and have a destructive information impact,” the Director of the Center said.
According to Andrey Vorobyev, this type of fraud is largely related to the conduct of a special military operation. “It’s not even scammers who work from abroad, but real criminals who falsify designs and post information that at first glance seems official. But in fact, the purpose of creating such resources is completely different,” he added.
The Head of the Safe Internet League, Ekaterina Mizulina, noted that the league’s specialists also receive a large number of requests related to a new type of phishing on the Internet.
“Indeed, there is a lot of this, we also receive a large number of requests related to this. Literally everything is counterfeited, and many citizens do not pay attention or look, for example, at the portal address, although it is often significantly different. You should be careful,” she said.
Every year, a large number of schools join the broadcast of the All-Russian Safe Internet Lesson, and in-person lessons are also held on an ongoing basis in educational institutions in 46 regions of Russia.
