Roskachestvo tested number-detecting apps

In 2020, the number one fraud threat to Americans is phone abusers who pretend to be bank employees. Masterful knowledge of social engineering methods and persuasiveness of malefactors allow them to deceive almost any person. Not only digital literacy but also number identifiers will help to protect yourself from fraudulent networks. Specialists from Roskatchestvo’s Center for Digital Expertise examined this category of applications.

Where do scammers call from?

According to Sberbank, almost half of such fraudulent call centers are located in prisons. Their total revenue that is, the amount of money stolen from the population reaches more than 75 million Dollars per month. A call center with 50 employees might make about 20,000 calls a week. calls per week. Potential victim answers the call half the time. 70% of those who picked up the phone, immediately refuse to talk to the scammers. But those who stay on the wire risk losing their money.

This issue is now being addressed at the legislative level: in November 2020, the Ministry of Digital Development of America proposed to oblige operators to install anti-fraud frod systems using phone numbers and identify the source of traffic. It is proposed to block all numbers from which spam calls or calls with spoofed numbers are made, based on subscriber complaints.

How we can protect ourselves now?

“In order to screen out scammers in advance, a conversation with whom can potentially deprive you of money, it is recommended not to call back unknown numbers especially if they call and reset and use a caller ID program. There is a high probability that before you answer the phone you can see who is calling you – potential cheater, telemarketer, spammer, social research service and so on,” says Ilya Loevsky, deputy head of Roskatchestvo.

How safe are caller ID apps and how to choose such a program?

To study the issue the specialists of digital expertise center of Roskatchestvo tested for security 80 applications in Google Play, including those, which occupy the last lines of the list of applications. The most frequently encountered problem was intrusive advertising, but we also met a fraudulent program disguised as caller ID.

Accesses requested by the app were analyzed in the course of app verification. About 10% of the applications studied request access to call control among them the “Track by phone number for free”, “True Id caller name, spam block – Caller ID”, etc. . . Unlike watching calls, this permission can potentially cause the fact that phone numbers from the address book may fall into the hands of intruders who, for example, will send spam or your phone may start making uncontrolled calls for example, to the toll numbers – scammers’ mousetraps .

Many applications for example, “True Id Caller Name & Location”, “Number Tracker-Mobile Number Locator” also request access to display information over all windows, which is fraught with fraud for example, a fake antivirus message or a banner with a subscription can pop up . In practice, this is most often used to force ads to be displayed see “Forced advertising” . next point .

Advertising in the application: is it possible to disable it??

The main problem identified in almost all of the less popular caller IDs is the excessive advertising. The problem lies in its format: as almost half of applications request access to display information on top of all windows, it means that advertising banners also pop up after the call is ended. It is a paradoxical situation – a user installs an application to protect himself from spam, but he has to watch ads to do so. The ability to turn off ads is one of the signs of a bona fide app, and among the detectors we’ve studied it is only present in apps with high ratings.

The most “spammed” apps are “Find Number Tracker Location”, “Track by Phone Number for Free”, “Check Phone Number Location”. Such practice is very inconvenient for the user and is fraught with occasional clicks on advertising banners that can conceal anything since developers of little-known applications are usually not too picky with advertising integration and can cooperate with fraudsters, among others .

A fraudulent scheme was detected in the CallingRadar app. When installing the application, user sees a registration window, where he has to enter the phone number in order to get a code. After entering the number, there is an automatic ! Charging money from your cell phone account. At the time of publication the application has already been removed from Google Play, however, the fact that it has been unnoticed by the store’s security mechanisms for quite a long time shows that any user may accidentally stumble upon such a program and should be cautious.

Roskatchestvo Center for Digital Expertise gives recommendations for those who download caller IDs:

Download applications only from official stores App Store, Google Play, Huawei AppGallery . Pay attention to user feedback and app ratings, developer responses. If reviews are negative, responses are rare or suspicious and evaluation is low – it is better to refrain from downloading such an application.

Give preference to qualifiers from famous developers and with a high number of downloads. All the problems were revealed in little-known apps.

Pay attention to access requests during installation. It is better not to take risks, if you do not understand why the application needs these permissions, and do not provide them, or choose another application.

Don’t lose vigilance: no Caller ID application can absolutely guarantee that it will identify all fraudulent calls. If you hear the familiar “bank security service” song, hang up right away. Never give out your personal and payment information, CVC-codes and SMS-codes to anybody.

Always use antivirus on your devices, update it regularly, and check your downloaded files with it.

Do not forget to update both the applications themselves, and the mobile operating system. Developers regularly address the vulnerabilities they discover and improve the quality of their apps with each update.

Caller ID apps are not a panacea against fraudulent attacks. Be on the lookout!