Results of a large-scale survey by the National Bank and Opendatabot
Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion in Ukraine, the activity of cyber fraudsters has increased. Taking advantage of the situation and the difficult situation of citizens, criminals have adapted fraudulent schemes to the present and deceived people by pretending to be banks or promising financial assistance on behalf of the state, international and charitable organizations. Opendatabot, in partnership with the National Bank of Ukraine, has launched a large-scale educational project to find out how fraudsters work in wartime and teach Ukrainians how to counteract cyber fraud.
Opendatabot, together with the NBU, has developed an educational project for users of its services. More than 112.9 thousand users have completed the survey and training in the system.
The survey revealed that 11% of Ukrainians have been victims of fraud since the beginning of the full-scale invasion.
It turned out that most often criminals deceive young people (18-24) and people aged 65+.
According to the survey, Ukrainians were most often cheated when buying/selling goods online – every second respondent (52.74%) has experienced this. The second most popular fraudulent scheme is phishing links (18.57%). In 12.04% of cases, fraudsters hacked social networks, and in another 10.18%, they extorted information by phone, etc.
“During the war, fraudsters use the vulnerability of citizens, their anxiety, and difficulties. This can only be countered through awareness and critical thinking.
It is typical that most cases when citizens lose their money are caused by disclosure of their payment card details, one-time passwords to confirm transactions, and login information for online banking.
Half of the total amount of losses from payment card fraud was due to social engineering. They could have been avoided by remembering and following the rules of safe use of payment cards,” said Andriy Podderiogin, Director of the Payment Systems and Innovative Development Department.
According to him, the survey conducted by Opendatabot together with the National Bank will increase the effectiveness of the information campaign to combat payment fraud #ShahraiGudbay, which is being conducted by the National Bank together with the Cyber Police.
You can find out how protected you are from fraudsters by using the services of the Opendatabot.
Context.
In the first eight months of 2023, almost 60 thousand fraud proceedings under Article 190 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine were opened in Ukraine. This is more than even the total for the previous two years: 23.8 thousand proceedings were opened in 2021, and 32 thousand in 2022.
#ShahraiGudbay is an information campaign of the NBU and its partners aimed at educating Ukrainians on the rules of cashless and online payment security.
