Fraudsters have created almost 50 sites that mimic the State Services portal, amid the introduction of non-working days due to the worsening situation with the COVID-19 coronavirus. Kommersant writes about this with reference to Infosecurity a Softline Company, which provides services in the field of information security.
According to her calculations, from October 18 to October 21, 48 domain names were registered in Runet that imitate “State Services”, for example gosusliga, gosusluni, etc. such an opportunity. During the lockdown period, the demand for fake vaccination certificates is increasing – this is the reason for the surge in registrations of sites imitating “State Services”, he explained.
“Attackers can use such domains to sell fake QR codes or phishing — access to a user's personal data or infecting his device with a virus,” Vurasco says.
The head of the company “Internet-search” Igor Bederov, in a conversation with the publication, said that it is to such fake sites, similar to “Gosuslugi”, that there are links on fake certificates. According to him, in recent days, there has been an increase in search queries on the Internet about fake PCR tests.
The Ministry of Digital Science told Kommersant that the department constantly monitors the creation of resources with domain names that look like gosuslugi.ru. “According to the results of the analysis, part of the resources is blocked, the rest are under control until unlawful content or actions are revealed,” the ministry said. According to him, 100-200 suspicious resources are blocked monthly.
Experts from Infosecurity a Softline Company say that on ordinary days one or two such domains are registered, but now, in connection with the decree of President Vladimir Putin, their number has increased dramatically.
As noted by Kommersant, such a massive registration of such domains has not been observed since the beginning of summer, when Moscow introduced the requirement to present a QR code at the entrance to catering establishments, theaters, cinemas, which confirmed the passage of vaccination against COVID or a previous illness. Then, schemes began to appear in Runet to circumvent the requirements of the Moscow City Hall. For this, it was proposed to use code generators and bind them to sites that imitate “State Services”.
Persons using fake certificates can be brought under Art. 236 of the Criminal Code (violation of sanitary and epidemiological rules), Alexandra Orekhovich, a member of the commission on legal support of the digital economy of the Moscow branch of the Russian Lawyers' Association, told the publication. This article provides for imprisonment for up to two years or a fine of up to 700 thousand rubles. “But for this it is necessary to prove that the actions of the violator entailed a massive illness, which is practically impossible to do,” the lawyer clarified.
In her opinion, Art. 6.3 of the Administrative Code (violation in the field of ensuring the sanitary and epidemiological well-being of the population). It provides for a fine of up to 40 thousand rubles. “Perhaps we will see a number of cases under this article,” Orekhovich says.
On October 20, Putin signed a decree on non-working days amid a sharp rise in the number of cases and deaths due to COVID-19. The head of state noted that non-working days are set taking into account the preservation of wages for employees. The decree stated that the regional authorities can establish additional non-working days until October 30 or extend them after November 7, based on the sanitary and epidemiological situation.
To date, a third of Russian subjects have been determined with the exact dates of non-working days. In 27 regions, they will completely coincide with federal ones, and in three – Moscow, Moscow region and Kursk region – they will begin ahead of schedule. In the capital and the region, the days from October 28 to November 7 will be non-working days; in Kursk, they decided to start the antique “vacation” from Monday, October 25.
