Fraudulent websites to be blocked urgently as initiated by Bank of Russia
Online resources used by fraudsters to steal funds from people will be blocked extrajudicially at the Bank of Russia’s initiative. The related law becomes effective today, on 1 December 2021. Owing to the new law, the website blocking procedure will take from two to three days instead of several weeks needed before.
The Bank of Russia is making extensive efforts to combat fraudulent websites, including those offering illegal financial services, and online financial pyramids. The regulator initiated the blocking of 7,680 fraudulent websites in 2020 and of 4,376 over the first three quarters of 2021. Pursuant to the new procedure, information on detected fraudulent online resources is submitted to the Prosecutor General’s Office, after which the latter requests the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media (Roskomnadzor) to block such websites extrajudicially. The Bank of Russia was testing the new communication procedure even before the effective date of the law.
If used for illicit purposes in finance, websites in foreign domain zones (COM, NET, UK, and others) will also be blocked according to the new procedure.
By limiting access to illegal entities’ websites in a prompt manner, the authorities thus reduce risks for financial consumers and the number of potential victims.