Tulyakov warned about a new scheme of fraudsters with accounts of the dead

Fraudsters began using accounts of deceased people in social networks and on digital services to deceive relatives and acquaintances. Experts warn that such profiles with a long history of publications, photos and contact lists are becoming especially valuable for social engineering.

After the death of a person, his pages are often left unattended: relatives may not know passwords or do not engage in digital inheritance. According to R-Vision technical account manager Alexander Vinokurov, suspicious activity in such profiles can go unnoticed for a long time, which gives attackers more time to use the account.

The main value of such pages lies not only in access to them, but also in the accumulated reputation. Unlike the recently created fake profile, the account of a real person is more trusted thanks to correspondence, photos and a circle of acquaintances.

Artificial intelligence technologies pose an additional danger. Previously, scammers limited themselves to sending messages with requests for help or malicious links, but now they can create deepfakes based on photos and voice recordings, as well as simulate the communication style of the page owner.

According to Sberbank, over the past year and a half, the number of cybercrimes using deepfakes in Russia has increased 26 times, and the damage from such schemes since the beginning of 2026 exceeded 2 billion rubles.

Separately alarming is the situation with accounts on the portal “State Services”. According to data that became known in the spring of 2026, the accounts of deceased Russians are sold on the darknet at a price of 100 rubles to 125 dollars. Buyers can select profiles by region of registration, age, gender and other parameters.