It should be noted that it is prohibited for the inmates at the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN) facilities to use mobile phones, however, there have been cases when smartphones were brought into prisons and even entire prison call-centers were discovered, which resulted in a collaborative initiative of the Russian Internal Ministry, the Russian Federal Security Service and FSIN to block mobile services in places of detention. A binding requirement that the fraudsters had for all the victims was the existence of a mobile banking app and money on their mobile phone accounts. That’s the reason why criminals had their eye on wealthy people who were confined in places of detention. However, starting in 2019, when banks stepped up their fight against fraud, they needed more time and could only make transactions 24 hours after a SIM card duplicate has been issued.
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In 2017-2018, the fraudsters were able to steal large sums of money almost immediately. The money ($700-$1,400 on average) was transferred from the victims to third-party accounts and through a series of transactions was then cashed out in other cities, e.g. In a number of cases, the forger did not even bother to send the actual SIM card instead, they simply sent or dictated the codes over the phone.
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Once the cloned SIM card was activated, the victim lost connection and the new SIM card owner sent a request to the bank to get a one-time code to access the victim’s mobile banking service.
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They used a forged driving license as an ID. An employee of the underground service forged powers of attorney (the form costs about $21 on forums in addition, forged stamps are used or alternatively the forms are printed out using a color printer) and reissued SIM cards at mobile operator stores in Moscow and the Moscow Region. Ad promoting database check service posted on an underground forumĪt the next stage, the fraudsters used an underground SIM card recovery service, which is quite popular on the Darknet. As such, not only can they gain access to the personal data of a particular customer, they can also check their bank account balance - all in real time.įigure 1. The owners of these services are usually well connected with insiders at banks with a high level of access. To collect information about their victims, the fraudsters used special database check services on Telegram channels or underground forums.
![stealing sim card hack stealing sim card hack](https://theintercept.imgix.net/wp-uploads/sites/1/2020/09/sim-cloning-theintercept.jpg)
One threat group targeted Russian banks’ VIP customers. Many of these offences were related to gaining access to online banking services and stealing money from the victims’ bank accounts. SIM card reissue fraud peaked in 2017–2018, when criminals hacked the Instagram, email and messaging app accounts of popular bloggers, entrepreneurs, celebrities, and sports starts and demanded a ransom to restore access. The group had been active for several years and its damage is estimated at tens of thousands of dollars even inmates at detention facilities were among its victims.
![stealing sim card hack stealing sim card hack](https://helpdeskgeek.com/wp-content/pictures/2019/12/Protect-SIM-Card.png)
With the assistance of Group-IB, an international company that specializes in preventing and investigating cyberattacks, the Moscow Criminal Investigation Department has detained the organizers of a criminal group that focused on reissuing SIM cards and stealing money from Russian banking customers.