According to Check Point Technologies, the black market for the sale of fake vaccination certificates is growing exponentially. The cybersecurity expert says that the number of advertisers and subscribers has grown by 10 and 12 times, respectively. And in Portugal there are already fake documents at around 150 euros. The specialist also warns about new sales methods that use bots to create certificates “on demand”.
Check Point reports that the fake vaccination certificate has spread to 29 countries, including Portugal, which debuted on the list, along with Austria, Brazil, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Singapore, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates.
In August, the expert identified 1000 advertisers on Telegram.but currently reports that 10,000 users are offering the sale of fake vaccination certificates. The increase in supply is justified by an increase in demand, for which sellers are united in groups on the Telegram social network. He says that the number of subscribers has increased recently, and some groups have reached 300,000 members. “The surge is due to the mandatory vaccination plan announced by the US administration last week, according to Check Point Research.”
The increasingly sophisticated presentation of forged documents is also mentioned. Check Point investigators have discovered that, for example, there is a Telegram bot in Austria that generates fake certificates for free. Interested users only need to fill in the relevant details and a PDF file with all the information provided will be provided.
The expert notes that earlier this type of business was conducted through Darknet channels, access to which was more limited, limited to specific software. But over the past nine months, the black market has switched to Telegram. Advertisers call this platform attractive because of its anonymity, reach and scale.
