Phishing Links Blocked in Russia Increase Fivefold in 2023

According to analysts at Kaspersky Lab, the volume of online fraud in Russia grew significantly in 2023. The number of phishing and scam links on the Russian internet (Runet) blocked by the company increased more than fivefold compared to the previous year.

Phishers Target Messenger Accounts

Researchers report that one of the most common targets for phishers in Russia throughout the year was users’ messenger accounts. Criminals frequently attacked these accounts as part of multi-stage phone fraud schemes and to launch phishing attacks on contacts from the victims’ lists.

“Currently, we see no signs that the volume of phishing and scams will decrease anytime soon. On the contrary, criminals continue to develop their tactics and create multi-stage schemes to steal data, for example, by referencing the victim’s field of work. Such attacks become much more complex when they start with a message in a messenger, supposedly from a friend or a colleague in the same field, or are accompanied by fake voice messages,” said Sergey Golovanov, Chief Expert at Kaspersky Lab.

Increase in Malicious Links and Phone Fraud

In 2023, the number of malicious links in Russia also rose—by 2.5 times compared to 2022. Experts classify these as pages containing links to malware, as well as online resources needed for the operation of various malicious programs.

The volume of phone fraud also remained consistently high. In 2023, 43% of users of the Kaspersky Who Calls app received calls from unknown numbers suspected of being fraudulent. The peak occurred in November, when 18.5% of users received such calls. Overall, 94% of users encountered some form of spam calls in 2023.