After experiencing setbacks on the Ukrainian front, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a partial mobilization. Russian men who are eligible for enlistment have turned to illegal channels that grant them fabricated exemptions, whereas those fleeing the country to neighboring regions have turned to using identity masking tools.
Due to the aforesaid circumstance, it is now highly profitable for people to sell illegal services. In a similar vein, scammers and hackers see a good opportunity to take advantage of anxious people in haste.
Cybercriminals selling fake documents on the dark web, Telegram, and other encrypted channels are the initial scams to attempt to profit from the situation.
The scammers have even gone to the point of actively publicizing their phony services on social media and making direct contact with individuals through channels that preach about mobilization. The hackers allegedly offer people certificates of ineligibility for military duty, which they claim will enable them to avoid enlistment, according to a report by RIA Novosti.
For the recruitment officers to never hunt for the buyer, the agreement also calls for updating the regional enlistment office's database within 48 hours. The scammers demand 27,000 rubles ($470) in exchange for the same, as well as a copy of the client's passport.
Once the funds are paid, the con artists cut off contact with the victim and probably utilize the identity they have stolen to commit more fraud or sell it on the dark web. These advertisements claim to be able to produce fake HIV and hepatitis certificates for 33,000 and 38,000 rubles ($630), respectively.
According to Russian news site Kommersant, there is a 50% increase in demand for so-called 'gray' SIM cards as a result of the widespread migration of Russians. These SIM cards support 'pay-as-you-use' plans and thus are compatible with the networks of MTS, MegaFon, Beeline, Tele2, and Yota. Since the government can use regular SIMs to trace young men liable for military duty and potentially halt them at the border, Russians are eagerly looking for these cards.
IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity), is a special 15-digit number that is connected to the device's hardware instead of the SIM card. Roskomsvoboda, a Russian internet rights group, says there have been numerous cases of people being forced by FSB officers to divulge their IMEI numbers while entering Georgia, Kazakhstan, and Finland. IMEI monitoring is aided by using telecommunication stations for approximate location triangulation.
Law enforcement has used IMEI for several years, and tracking software that promises to find your lost or stolen device also employs it. Except for a few Huawei, Xiaomi, and ZTE models that store the IMEI in a rewritable memory region in violation of the technology's rules and allow users to flash it with specific tools, assigned IMEIs are not interchangeable or editable.
As an alternative, Roskomvoboda advises evacuating Russians to either submit a burner phone at the border or purchase a new device once they have left the nation.
