The cybercrime activities in Russia have dramatically increased since the beginning of coronavirus pandemic, Ilya Sachkov, general director and founder of Russian cybersecurity company Group-IB, told Sputnik
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 04th July, 2020) The cybercrime activities in Russia have dramatically increased since the beginning of coronavirus pandemic, Ilya Sachkov, general director and founder of Russian cybersecurity company Group-IB, told Sputnik.
"There are some interesting statistics. According to the [Russian] Ministry of Internal Affairs, while the number of murders and attempted murders, as well as robberies, dropped in January-April 2020, the growth of IT crime [in the given period] amounted to 82.4 percent and significantly influenced the increase in the total number of recorded crimes in the country within [these] four months by 0.8 percent. I will not be wrong if I say that most of the cases are various kinds of financial frauds," Sachkov said.
According to the IT expert, many Russian employees were working in a protected corporate environment before the COVID-19 lockdown regime started.
"When the employees of most Russian companies switched to working from home, they became targets for cybercriminals. First, both the employer and the employer's security service, as well as IT services, are located somewhere far, the psychological barrier is gradually erasing, and so, of course, vigilance is reduced," Sachkov noted.
He added that other cases of cybercrime in Russia included online shopping fraud.
"A person with money, with a bank card and internet banking, who wants to order something quickly on the internet, is an ideal target for attackers," Sachkov said.
Russia has so far recorded 674,515 COVID-19 cases, 10,027 deaths and 446,879 recoveries.Some Russian cities, including Moscow, began to lift the coronavirus-related restrictions in June.
