How a scammer can pretend to be your boss: How to prevent yourself from being deceived?

Every day, criminals come up with more and more new ways to steal money from gullible people. Recently, as the Sberbank of Russia team warns, they have increasingly begun to pretend to be managers or chief accountants of companies and extort money from their employees.

How do they do it?

Attackers create fake accounts in instant messengers, posing as the founders or directors of a company in order to deceive gullible employees. To do this, they use photos from available sources, such as the company website or real profiles of executives, and create convincing-looking fake accounts.

After establishing contact with the victim, the attackers begin the conversation with general phrases, gaining trust, and then give instructions to urgently transfer money to the specified details or take out a loan. If a potential victim tries to call their boss back, scammers will reject the call and send messages like “Busy” or “Can’t talk.”

In one case, scammers pretended to be two founders of a company and began to put pressure on the CEO. Interestingly, the attackers were well prepared for this mission: they managed to study the communication style of these people, as well as the structure and internal processes of the organization.

How to avoid becoming a victim of scammers?

Sberbank warns that if you receive suspicious messages with instructions to transfer money, you should not rush to follow the instructions. If the “manager” is in a hurry, puts pressure, but does not answer calls, you should be especially careful.

Experts recommend not giving in to pressure and rushing to transfer money, especially if there is even the slightest suspicion about the authenticity of the request, even if you received a request from a seemingly familiar person.

Experts remind that this fraudulent scheme was first recorded in January of this year. However, recently it has again become popular among attackers.