The Russian government has canceled the possibility of making calls via the Internet to mobile and landline phones, because, in their opinion, such calls are used by fraudsters for illegal actions, as stated in Resolution No. 1898 of December 26, published on the website of the Cabinet of Ministers.
According to Russians, fraudsters have been actively using such technologies because they allow them to spoof phone numbers. “Now this type of telephone fraud will be seriously limited, since the possibility of connecting data networks to telephone networks will be excluded“, the document says.
As stated in the resolution, this measure will not affect ordinary phone users, as well as those who use voice communications in instant messengers for communication. In this case, special programs are used that provide communication over the Internet without access to landline and mobile telephone networks, the document explains.
But a little earlier, information leaked to the media that the Ministry of Digital Development and Roskomnadzor are discussing the introduction of restrictions on calls in messengers due to the activity of these same fraudsters. According to Kommersant's sources, two scenarios were considered: blocking voice traffic only from abroad and a complete ban on voice calls in messengers.
According to MegaFon, the share of fraudulent calls in messengers has grown from 1 to 40% in three years. After in the summer, at the request of RKN, operators began to block calls from subscribers of companies that are not connected to the anti-fraud system, fraudsters increased their activity in the messengers Telegram, WhatsApp and Viber.