"You are in line for payments" - no, you are in line for a scam: a new scam on Viber

The Center for Strategic Communications reported about a new wave of fraud. In the common scheme, attackers exploit trust in international organizations and pretend to be “UN representatives”. In the messages they promise assistance, ask to press the “+” symbol and wait for a call, and later demand the last four digits of the code that arrives in Viber. Through that code, scammers can intercept access to the account or obtain the user’s sensitive data.

Such bulk messages often contain obvious signs of forgery. For example, an account may be registered under a woman’s name, but the message author writes as a man. Experts advise paying attention to these small mistakes first, because they often reveal a phishing scheme before the victim is even persuaded to hand over the code.

Viber itself previously warned separately that official messages from the service come only from a verified chat with a blue badge, and the messenger never asks for personal data or a confirmation code in chat. The service also recommends enabling two-step verification: a PIN is required when activating a new device or changing important account settings.

A single careless step in a messenger is enough to lose your account, contacts, or give scammers a foothold for further deception. So the main rule here is simple: no codes, no clicking on suspicious messages, and no trust in “payouts” that contacted you first. In general, the Ministry of Internal Affairs has warned more than once that “assistance from international organizations” scams in messengers are built precisely on fake pages, extracting personal data, and attempts to gain access to other people’s services.

Previously we wrote:

• Wanted a payment from the state but funded the scammers: a woman in the Mykolaiv region was scammed for 58 thousand
• Telegram “blocked” you? No, it’s just scammers hunting the trusting again
• “Ukrenergo pays compensation”? No, scammers have sent you a bill
• Scammers deceived residents of the Mykolaiv region for over 600 thousand hryvnias
• “The phone number is expiring” — and problems begin: how scammers catch people on Telegram