Telia: Scammers Didn't Take a Break for the Holidays

TALLINN - The Christmas and New Year's period of 2025 and the beginning of 2026 have been an exceptionally busy time for criminals, with people in Estonia being actively targeted through various fraudulent schemes, Telia reported.

The number of various scam attacks attempting to gain access to people's bank accounts grew significantly during the holiday season, according to statistics from Telia's Security Network (Turvavõrk).

"In just two weeks, the Security Network solution blocked nearly a million threats targeting private customers, with the ultimate goal of gaining access to their bank accounts," noted Tarko Tikan, Telia's chief network architect.

The statistics come from Telia's Security Network, which blocks access to dangerous websites, phishing attempts, scam emails, and malware. Tikan stated that the past few weeks have been the most intense in terms of threats detected and blocked by the Security Network.

By far, the most favored scamming method for criminals is the distribution of various phishing sites and scam emails. Through these, they try to lure people into clicking on suspicious links to subsequently obtain their personal PIN codes and access their bank accounts. The Security Network detected and blocked 609,000 scams related to phishing pages between December 22 and January 4.

Telia's security solution identified 280,000 disreputable websites mimicking well-known banks and e-shops during the same period. Criminals create such pages to give users the impression that they have landed on the website of a trustworthy service provider. In reality, unsuspecting visitors are tricked into entering their PIN codes on the site, allowing criminals to gain access to the user's bank account.

The Security Network blocked slightly fewer attacks related to botnets-networks of malware-infected devices-and malware, at 14,400 and 9,300 instances, respectively.

According to Tarko Tikan, the Security Network has blocked an average of hundreds of different threats per home internet connection over the past two weeks. "This gives an idea of how actively ordinary home internet customers have been targeted by criminals," Tikan added.

Turvavõrk (Security Network) is a solution for Telia's home internet customers that provides additional protection for home internet traffic and helps prevent access to dangerous websites, phishing attempts, scam emails, and malware. This protection extends to all devices on the home network, from computers to robotic vacuum cleaners and smart refrigerators.