РИА Новости51 minutes agoCrime1 min readRussia

Scammers offer to install an update for State Services, the State Duma warned

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State Duma Deputy Anton Nemkin warned about a new fraud scheme in which attackers pose as employees of government or medical institutions and offer to install a malicious “update” for State Services or EMIAS.
He advised downloading applications only from official sources and checking for updates within the service, as well as discussing the threat with elderly relatives.

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Why It Matters

Fraudsters are increasingly taking advantage of the gullibility of citizens by posing as employees of government services in order to distribute malware under the guise of updates.

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The scammers pose as employees of government or medical institutions and offer to install an “update” for the “State Services” or the Unified Medical Information and Analytical System (EMIAS), State Duma deputy, federal coordinator of the “Digital Russia” project of the United Russia party Anton Nemkin told RIA Novosti.

The RIA Novosti agency, together with the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia, launched a special project “Code from SMS” to combat fraudsters and expose cybercriminals.

“Fraudsters continue to adapt familiar digital services to suit their schemes. Now the attackers pose as employees of government or medical institutions and offer to install an “update” for State Services or EMIAS. In fact, the user can be sent a malicious file, which, after installation, gives criminals the opportunity to gain access to the data and functions of the device,” Nemkin said.

According to him, the danger of such a scheme is that it is designed not so much for technical illiteracy as for trust: a person is told a familiar name of the service, informed about a supposedly mandatory update, and creates a sense of urgency.

“It is important to remember a simple rule: government and medical services do not require you to install applications using a link from a call or message. Applications should be downloaded only from official sources, and information about updates should be checked directly in the service itself,” the deputy added.

Nemkin also advised not to click on links from suspicious messages. Separately, he recommended talking to elderly relatives, since they are the ones who most often trust callers who introduce themselves as employees of a clinic or government agency. They, as the parliamentarian clarified, need to be explained in advance that no “updates” can be installed over the phone, and if in any doubt, they need to call the organization back on their own using the official number.

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