Within five years, Roskomnadzor’s Antifraud system, used to combat traffic spoofing during voice calls, should begin to detect “incidents” in instant messengers, including Telegram and Viber. Kommersant writes about this with reference to the preliminary version of the passport of the federal project “Information Security”, which is part of the national project “Data Economy”.
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The document says that the Antifraud system will have to detect “incidents in popular instant messengers” such as WhatsApp, Telegram and Viber in 2029. Let us remind you that the Antifraud system was launched at the end of 2022, and its purpose is to identify cases of traffic spoofing when making voice calls. After the system was launched, attackers began to use instant messengers more actively.. In April last year, the head of the Ministry of Digital Development, Maksut Shadayev, said that 70% to 80% of fraudulent calls are made through WhatsApp, owned by the American company Meta✴ Platforms.
However, the ability to control calls made through instant messengers raises doubts among experts. For example, MegaFon noted that operators see the fact that a subscriber is using a particular messenger, “but since such traffic is encrypted and goes inside data transmission channels, the operator cannot see the telephone numbers of those communicating, nor the intensity and length of sessions.”. And Tele2 added that “for such calls, not only mobile Internet, but also any other access method can be used.”
It should be noted that for 2029 it is also planned to create a verification node within the Antifraud IS to block outgoing calls from the numbering capacity unallocated between operators, as well as to implement the possibility of blocking calls from numbers with codes 8-800 and 8-900. Earlier, VimpelCom stated that numbers with code 900 are actively used by scammers to make calls to Viber. Sberbank, which uses the 900 number, reported that bank employees do not make calls via Viber or any other messenger.
The Ministry of Digital Development reported that the final version of the action plan provided for within the framework of the national project “Data Economy” will be presented in the summer. Currently, it is at the stage of formation, taking into account the opinions of interested departments and the market. Official representatives of Roskomnadzor have not yet commented on this issue.