The Ministry of Internal Affairs warns about the resumption of the fraudulent campaign 'Vote for my friend's child', which aims to obtain personal data through malicious links.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs (MAI) has issued a warning regarding the resumption of the fraudulent campaign 'Vote for my friend's child', through which hackers attempt to mislead citizens to gain access to personal data and messaging accounts. The messages from this campaign contain a malicious link that should not be accessed, even if it comes from a known phone number, as that account may be compromised.

Cybersecurity specialists from Bitdefender have observed that this campaign is affecting more and more WhatsApp users in Romania, using children's contests as a pretext. The emotional messages urge victims to vote for a child, and accessing the link gives hackers control over the accounts. Once the account is compromised, attackers can send similar messages to the victim's contacts and commit fraud. Romania is among the main targets of this campaign, along with Poland and Germany, with 177 identified fraudulent domains. MAI recommends that citizens remain vigilant and not share suspicious messages.