Distant fraud using remote access programs

Introduction: the article deals with Internet fraud committed by using AnyDesk and TeamViewer remote access programs. Materials and Methods: the authors have studied such materials as scientific articles, regulatory legal acts of the Russian Federation, statistical data from the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation, expert reports, Internet sources. A set of general scientific and specific scientific methods has been applied in the article: description, the method of logical comprehension, abstraction and generalization, analysis and synthesis, system approach, and statistical method. Literature review: the authors have provided a number of sources describing the ways to commit fraud in the global network. Particular attention is paid to the works by Ye.R. Rossinskaya and I.A. Ryadovsky, V.I. Aleskerov and V.V. Baranov, I.V. Poddubny that focus on the remote access programs as a tool to commit crimes. Results: the authors point out that AnyDesk and TeamViewer programs used by perpetrators for stealing the citizens’ money and accounts are legal software and don’t look suspicious for the users when they install these programs. The article describes some ways to commit fraud by using remote access programs (the so-called combined method, which combines social engineering, SIM swapping and remote access programs, stock exchange fraud). Examples from the judicial practice are provided. The authors draw attention to the fact that since the user himself agrees to install the appropriate program and the signal to the bank comes exactly from his computer or smartphone, it is hard to distinguish his actions from those of the intruders, and it is extremely difficult to prove that the account has been hacked. Discussion and Conclusions: at the end of the article the authors come to the conclusion that the systems for monitoring and preventing fraudulent transactions applied in banks today, and, of course, the users’ compliance with elementary rules of digital hygiene can become the most effective means to counter “distant” fraud committed by using remote access programs.