Pretexting as a social engineering technique used by telephone scammers: a criminological view of the problem

Introduction: the article discusses the criminological features of the use of pretexting as a social engineering technique by criminals who commit fraudulent actions using cellular communications. Materials and Methods: the empirical basis of the study were "The main directions of development of the financial market of the Russian Federation for 2022 and the period 2023-2024", modern scientific publications on social engineering, official information of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Tatarstan on the facts of telephone fraud in 2022, as well as data from a sociological survey conducted by the author. The research methodology was represented by a set of general scientific, special scientific and special legal research methods, including system-structural, logical, concrete sociological, linguistic methods. Results: the criminological aspects of pretexting, the reasons, the conditions of its use were considered, typical schemes for the implementation of pretexting as a result of telephone fraud, some features of the criminological characteristics of the criminal's personality were given. Special attention was paid to the need for victimological prevention of pretexting in relation to persons of retirement age as socially unprotected citizens and the most vulnerable category of the population. Discussion and Conclusions: the author of the article comes to the conclusion that pretexting as a technique of social engineering needs a comprehensive criminological description from the standpoint of criminology, sociology, psychology, communicative linguistics; suggests measures of victimological prevention of telephone fraud committed through pretexting.