The digital security hotline for Ukrainians Nadiyno has investigated methods of compromising Telegram accounts and named the most common hacking schemes. Among them: phishing attacks through fake messages from "support", friends, or favorite channels.
As part of the study, Nadiyno experts also concluded that the use of artificial intelligence to personalize attacks is gaining momentum, so fraudulent messages are becoming even more convincing.
Phishing Telegram bots and alternative Telegram clients with hidden backdoors that transmit data to scammers are also gaining momentum. Nadiyno noted that another real threat, especially for journalists, activists, and public figures, remains the interception of SMS codes.
"Analytics of calls to the Nadiyno.org digital security hotline in 2024 reveals an alarming trend: every month, from 70% to 80% of recorded cybersecurity incidents relate to unauthorized access to Telegram accounts. This creates significant risks not only for individual users, but also for national security as a whole," the document states.
Research was conducted to change this statistic. Based on it, Nadiyno created an interactive digital vigilance test to teach Ukrainians to recognize the most common fraudulent schemes.
The test recreates 10 real and potentially fraudulent Telegram dialogues. Its task is to distinguish a real message from a phishing trap. After each answer, an expert analysis of the scheme.
As a reminder, Nadiyno is the first digital security hotline for Ukrainian citizens in Central and Eastern Europe. Its specialists provide free assistance to protect against account hacking, data leakage, espionage, fraud, and other malicious actions online.