Check Point Research (CPR) warns of exponential growth in the black market for fake vaccination certificates. The number of advertisers and subscribers has grown 10 and 12 times, respectively. New sales methods have been identified that use bots to generate certificates on the fly. In Portugal, the cost of such a document is about 150 euros.
The black market for fake vaccination certificates has expanded to include 29 countries. Portugal is one of 9 countries to make its debut on this list, along with Austria, Brazil, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Singapore, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates.
As of August 10, 2021, Check Point Research has identified about 1,000 advertisers on Telegram. Currently, more than 10,000 users are offering fake vaccination certificates.
Telegram is one of the main platforms on which these illegal transactions take place. Here, sellers are organized into groups with a given number of followers. Recently, there has been a rapid increase in the number of subscribers and followers, with some groups reaching 300,000 members – an unprecedented number so far. The surge is due to the mandatory vaccination plan announced by the US administration last week, according to Check Point Research.
