Fraudsters deceive parents of schoolchildren by offering roles in skits for Teacher's Day

Fraudsters are sending messages to parents of Russian schoolchildren on behalf of event organizers, offering their children roles in skits for Teacher's Day.

After clicking on links designed as video files, the site requests access to the front camera and can receive a photo or video of a person, as well as collect information about his device.

The expert recommends accepting information about school events only from the class teacher and in official groups, checking information with the teacher using a known number, and not following links from messages from strangers.

MOSCOW, September 10 - RIA Novosti. Fraudsters began sending messages to parents of Russian schoolchildren on behalf of event organizers and offering their children roles in skits for the upcoming Teacher’s Day, said Daniil Borislavsky, a cybersecurity expert at Kontur.Aegids.

“The scheme is as follows: a parent receives a message on social networks from a stranger who introduces himself as the organizer of school events. In this case, the sender addresses the recipient by name and patronymic, states the name of his child and offers a role in a skit for Teacher’s Day,” Lenta.ru quotes the expert as saying.

According to Borislavsky, then the potential victim is sent two links formatted as video files: supposedly a recording of last year’s skit and a video from the rehearsal that has begun. After viewing, the parent is asked to choose a gift.

Additionally, when opening links, the page requests access to the front camera. After submitting it, a message indicating successful face authentication appears on the screen. Preliminary analysis showed that the site could have received a photo or video of a person, as well as collected information about his device.

After this, as the expert reported, the user receives a code to change the password from Gosuslug, and then they call supposedly from the portal’s support and report “uploaded documents.” Later, he begins to receive codes from other services.