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In Russia, the number of services that provide anonymous verification services when connecting to online platforms is growing, Kommersant reports with reference to information security specialists. This is due to the fact that the country has a requirement for mandatory identification of messenger users by phone number.
Such services offer mobile numbers for rent for a period from 20 minutes to several hours, the service costs from three to three hundred rubles, said Artyom Gavrichenkov, technical director of Qrator Labs. Judging by the errors in the English-language versions of the sites, the services are targeted at the Russian-speaking audience, the expert noted.
Such services can be used to spread malware or other fraudulent activities, Kaspersky Lab anti-virus expert Viktor Chebyshev warned. According to him, first of all, the risks relate to users of social networks and app stores:
The services in question provide telephone numbers to users on a temporary basis. Among the sites that provide such services are sms-reg.com, getsms.online, smska.net, simsms.org, etc.
The Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media said they did not know about such services, but admitted that they could be used for illegal actions.
The main driver of the development of all cybercrime, and, accordingly, the attractiveness of the Internet for cybercriminals is the anonymity of actions on the network, the head of the representative office of Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. explained to Gazeta.Ru. in Russia and the CIS Vasily Diaghilev.
“Using a variety of technical means, intruders or just people who do not want to leave traces on the Internet, use all sorts of ways to hide their identity when connected to the network; to work online. Legislation - not only Russian, but also in many other countries, provides that a person, when connecting to public access points, must somehow identify himself. This is an absolutely correct initiative. Perhaps it gives users some inconvenience, but it allows, at least for the state, to control who connects to access points in public places - and to identify potentially dangerous connections, ”the expert said.
People do not want to reveal their identity, and the reasons for this can be different: someone is watching prohibited content; someone is going to do something illegal, someone just wants to remain anonymous. They are all looking for ways to bypass user identification systems.
“Therefore, in our understanding, such services really pose a threat. Attackers and people who are ready to make money from this occupy a business niche that allows them to make good and, I must say, easy money. Moreover, this business is quite legal, so it is worth expecting that it will grow in the next few years, in my opinion, it is worth expecting that it will become a trend. A striking example of this is when the state tried to prohibit access to certain resources or messengers, the population, which did not know what VPN services were before, began to actively use them. The number of anonymous verification services will grow, so both legislators and technicians will need to think about how to close this loophole, ”Diaghilev concluded.
It is worth noting that despite the law on the deanonymization of messenger users that has already come into force, there have not yet been any cases of the authorities making claims to at least one messenger in this regard. Obviously, the citizens who are most sensitive to their privacy simply want to hedge themselves once again if they are ready to use such services.
Such services offer mobile numbers for rent for a period from 20 minutes to several hours, the service costs from three to three hundred rubles, said Artyom Gavrichenkov, technical director of Qrator Labs. Judging by the errors in the English-language versions of the sites, the services are targeted at the Russian-speaking audience, the expert noted.
Such services can be used to spread malware or other fraudulent activities, Kaspersky Lab anti-virus expert Viktor Chebyshev warned. According to him, first of all, the risks relate to users of social networks and app stores:
The services in question provide telephone numbers to users on a temporary basis. Among the sites that provide such services are sms-reg.com, getsms.online, smska.net, simsms.org, etc.
The Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media said they did not know about such services, but admitted that they could be used for illegal actions.
The main driver of the development of all cybercrime, and, accordingly, the attractiveness of the Internet for cybercriminals is the anonymity of actions on the network, the head of the representative office of Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. explained to Gazeta.Ru. in Russia and the CIS Vasily Diaghilev.
“Using a variety of technical means, intruders or just people who do not want to leave traces on the Internet, use all sorts of ways to hide their identity when connected to the network; to work online. Legislation - not only Russian, but also in many other countries, provides that a person, when connecting to public access points, must somehow identify himself. This is an absolutely correct initiative. Perhaps it gives users some inconvenience, but it allows, at least for the state, to control who connects to access points in public places - and to identify potentially dangerous connections, ”the expert said.
People do not want to reveal their identity, and the reasons for this can be different: someone is watching prohibited content; someone is going to do something illegal, someone just wants to remain anonymous. They are all looking for ways to bypass user identification systems.
“Therefore, in our understanding, such services really pose a threat. Attackers and people who are ready to make money from this occupy a business niche that allows them to make good and, I must say, easy money. Moreover, this business is quite legal, so it is worth expecting that it will grow in the next few years, in my opinion, it is worth expecting that it will become a trend. A striking example of this is when the state tried to prohibit access to certain resources or messengers, the population, which did not know what VPN services were before, began to actively use them. The number of anonymous verification services will grow, so both legislators and technicians will need to think about how to close this loophole, ”Diaghilev concluded.
It is worth noting that despite the law on the deanonymization of messenger users that has already come into force, there have not yet been any cases of the authorities making claims to at least one messenger in this regard. Obviously, the citizens who are most sensitive to their privacy simply want to hedge themselves once again if they are ready to use such services.
