Russian authorities are discussing completely or partially blocking calls through messaging apps, a method of communication increasingly used by scammers. Calls from scammers account for up to 40% of voice traffic in instant messengers, of which 70% are made from abroad. Operators claim that such a block can only be introduced using Roskomnadzor funds.
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The Ministry of Digital Development and Roskomnadzor are studying the possibility of limiting voice communications through instant messengers – blocking voice traffic only from abroad or completely, Kommersant reports, citing its own sources. It is noteworthy that “voice calls in instant messengers can only be blocked at the level of Roskomnadzor, this is not a question for the operators”one of the sources said. The agency can indeed block calls through instant messengers, and will do so if the platforms violate Russian laws, Roskomnadzor head Andrei Lipov said in October. But the Ministry of Digital Development assured that not yet “they are developing regulations to limit voice traffic in instant messengers”.
If three years ago the share of fraudulent calls in instant messengers did not exceed 1%, now it is about 40%, MegaFon calculated, and 70% of them come from abroad, added the Informzashita company. Currently, you can protect yourself from fraudulent calls in instant messaging services only through third-party applications that need to provide access to instant messengers, but the problem can be effectively solved only with the participation of the messenger administration, MegaFon noted. Such protection services are offered by mobile operators.
In general, the operator can only record the fact that a subscriber uses a particular messenger – traffic encryption does not allow studying specific scenarios for its use, indicate experts interviewed by Kommersant. At the same time, voice traffic in the general flow still has characteristic features by which it can be detected and blocked, but this requires DPI (Deep Packet Inspection) class solutions, in particular, TSPU equipment (technical means of countering threats), which Roskomnadzor installs on provider networks. For mobile operators, blocking voice communications in instant messengers would be beneficial – it would return subscribers to regular calls, traffic from which decreased by 5% in 2024 due to the fact that people are actively mastering instant messaging services.
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