MOSCOW, November 27. /TASS/. Fraudsters have actively used deepfakes in their schemes this year, generating audio and video messages with the voices of people familiar to potential victims through artificial intelligence, Deputy Head of the Security Department and Vice President of VTB Dmitry Sarantsev said.
"In 2025, the key trend among fraudsters has been deepfakes – artificial intelligence technologies used to create audio and video messages featuring the voices of relatives or bank employees, using recordings sourced from social media," the bank’s press service quoted Sarantsev as saying.
Fraudsters also relied on cash-out schemes, persuading victims to withdraw money from ATMs and hand it over to couriers, which allowed criminals to completely erase their digital footprint, he noted. "In addition, the malicious app NFC Gate has spread, which intercepts the signal of a contactless chip and transmits it to another device. Using it, fraudsters forced victims to deposit cash into drop accounts via ATMs under the guise of a ‘safe account,’" VTB explained.
At the same time, according to VTB’s assessment, the average amount in attempted thefts resulting from fraud attacks has decreased fourfold this year. The bank has also tightened its monitoring of suspicious transactions, enabling it to protect 16% more funds from fraudsters than during the same period last year.
VTB is also paying particular attention to combating drop accounts, Sarantsev assured. Over the past 2.5 years, nearly 300,000 drop accounts have been identified, and more than 4 bln rubles ($51.15 mln) in stolen funds have been blocked.