Sberbank Says Stopped Major Attack on Russian Card Holders by Ukrainian App Developer

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - After the start of Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine, Sberbank averted a large-scale attack on Russian card holders attempted by a Ukrainian app developer that tried to write off funds across its entire accumulated customer base, Stanislav Kuznetsov, Deputy Chairman of the Sberbank Executive Board, told Sputnik.

"I want to tell you about an attack that targeted many Russian citizens who have bank cards. Almost immediately after the start of the special operation, we stopped a massive withdrawal of funds from the cards of our clients. The number of write-off attempts reached tens of thousands per minute. Our investigation showed that these write-offs were initiated by a single Ukrainian company - a mobile application developer," Kuznetsov said.

He specified that the company, having about 50 different officially-registered applications, initiated mass write-offs across its entire accumulated database in one day.

This database contained the clients’ personal card information, collected and stored in violation of the requirements of international payment systems.

"Everything was completely legal, because they sold legal services in the applications - meal plan subscription, fitness programs, and so on. In one day, the company initiated mass write-offs across the entire database it had accumulated. We blocked hundreds of thousands of write-off attempts," the deputy chairman of the Sberbank Executive Board told Sputnik.

According to Kuznetsov, with the start of Russia's special operation in Ukraine, scammers stopped calling Russians for some time, but since March 20, they have become active again, although on a smaller scale - the number of such calls per day has fallen by 5.5 times.

In January, Sberbank received 250,000 complaints over scamming attempts, while in February, 264,000 such complaints were filed at the bank (an increase of around 6 percent). Since March 20, Sberbank has been registering about 2,000 scammer calls every 24 hours.

Kuznetsov told Sputnik that, according to Sberbank, most of the scammers who target Russian card-holders are based in Ukraine. Since the start of Russia’s military operation in the country, a lot of the call centers have either closed or relocated within Ukraine, to get away from active hostilities.

Sberbank, where most Russians keep their savings, is one of several financial institutions that have been targeted by Western sanctions over Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, launched on February 24, after the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR) appealed for help in defending themselves against Ukrainian provocations.