Users of Russian social network VKontakte, an equivalent of Facebook have been subjected to extortion by crypto scammers. Criminals use toughening of the legal responsibility for the publication of social media posts which are contrary to views of the Government. VK users, published controversial themed posts, receive a messages with a ransom demand of 150 BTC in exchange for silence.
On August 13, Managing Director of the social network Andrei Rogozov announced the possibility of making the profile completely private, available only to friends.
‘Statistics show that over time the situation with the initiation of criminal cases for publications on the Internet is deteriorating. VKontakte users are increasingly becoming involved in such cases. Law enforcement agencies often do not take into account the context, do not distinguish the publication from repost, and the image with a dubious joke equates to really dangerous criminal offenses’ he told.