{"id":500806,"date":"2025-12-08T16:31:35","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T13:31:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reform.news\/?p=500806"},"modified":"2025-12-08T19:28:47","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T16:28:47","slug":"belarusians-post-bank-card-numbers-in-threads-hoping-for-a-secret-santa-gift","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/belarusians-post-bank-card-numbers-in-threads-hoping-for-a-secret-santa-gift","title":{"rendered":"Belarusians Post Bank Card Numbers In Threads Hoping For A \u201cSecret Santa\u201d Gift"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n<p>A viral \u201cgame\u201d has spread in the Russian-language segment of the social network Threads: users publicly post their bank card numbers, hoping that a so-called \u201csecret Santa\u201d will transfer money to random participants. Such posts expose users to a wide range of fraud risks.<\/p>\n<p>Threads, still relatively new for the region, is rapidly growing. Its algorithms can spread content at high speed \u2014 a feature that fraudsters can easily exploit.<\/p>\n<p>A simple search for \u201csecret Santa\u201d on the platform brings up dozens of posts such as:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"quote\"><p><strong>\u201cWell, I decided to try too. Maybe I\u2019ll get lucky and a secret Santa will show up.<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>My card number:<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>I will also make 10 people happy. Just follow and like!\u201d<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<figure id=\"attachment_500769\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-500769\" style=\"width: 1233px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-500769\" src=\"https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/santa.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1233\" height=\"413\" srcset=\"https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/santa.jpg 1233w, https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/santa-300x100.jpg 300w, https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/santa-1200x402.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/santa-768x257.jpg 768w, https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/santa-870x291.jpg 870w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1233px) 100vw, 1233px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-500769\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Screenshot<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>These posts collect dozens or even hundreds of comments, with people posting their own card numbers as well.<\/p>\n<p>Why this is dangerous:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Fraudsters may attempt payments if, in addition to the card number, they manage to obtain the expiry date and CVV\/CVC.<\/li>\n<li>Even a card number alone can be used for social-engineering attacks, brute-force attempts or phishing schemes.<\/li>\n<li>There is a risk of identity theft if the card is linked to other personal data.<\/li>\n<li>Published information can remain in caches, archives or website copies even after a post is deleted.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A viral \u201cgame\u201d has spread in the Russian-language segment of the social network Threads: users publicly post their bank card numbers, hoping that a so-called \u201csecret Santa\u201d will transfer money to random participants. Such posts expose users to a wide range of fraud risks. Threads, still relatively new for the region, is rapidly growing. Its [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":119,"featured_media":500805,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sharing_image":{"poster":"https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/6936fcc62a557.jpg","width":1200,"height":630,"template":"691142dd","mode":"auto"},"_sharing_image_fieldset":{"dTVKfmI95PYT":"Belarusians Post Bank Card Numbers In Threads Hoping For A \u201cSecret Santa\u201d Gift"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[142339,142338],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-500806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-main","category-news"],"wps_subtitle":"","permalink_manager":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/119"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=500806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500806\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/500805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}