As mobile phone scams have become increasingly aggressive and expansive, stopping this largely anonymous crime of many victims needs a multi-stakeholder approach, according to a Globe Telecom Inc. official.
The world wide scale of mobile phone scams requires "an equally aggressive pushback by all stakeholders in the public and private sector, who are all victims of these illegal acts” said Globe Telecom’s Chief Information Security Officer, Anton Bonifacio.
“There is a shared responsibility to put protective measures in place, increase vigilance and create more awareness,” he said.
The government, law enforcement, business, consumers and other partners must work together against the scammers.
In 2017, the Telecommunication Standardization Sector of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU-T) recognized the growing threat that scams such as short message service (SMS) phishing pose to countries, telecoms operators and mobile phone and internet users worldwide.
The ITU-T then published its supplement on guidelines on countermeasures against short message service phishing and smishing attacks to help combat these scams and build awareness.
The ITU-T defines SMS phishing as “the attempt to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details for malicious reasons, by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication.”
Despite efforts by the United Nations’ ICT agency to control the spread of cybercrime and fraud, most countries around the world continue to struggle against these illicit practices.
The situation worsened during the Covid-19 pandemic as more people shifted to online transactions.
In the United States alone, robo-text figures have soared from about one billion per month in 2021 to 12 billion in June of 2022.
The US Federal Trade Commission also reported that a total of $137 million was lost in 2021 from fraud connected to scam texts.
Globe continues to encourage its customers to report spam and scam messages on its Stop Spam web portal.
The telco also urged android phone users to set up spam filters on their devices by downloading Google’s "Messages" app, setting it as their default Android SMS messenger, going to settings and enabling spam protection.
“We reiterate our call for mobile phone users to never open or click on links from unknown numbers or engage with these messages by replying with personal information,” Bonifacio stressed.
Globe maintains a cybersecurity operations center that works 24/7 on monitoring breaches and setting-up the necessary filters to block suspicious sources.
These include erring numbers, SIMs, and domains used in rapidly-evolving scamming methods.
Already, Globe has spent $20 million or roughly P1.1 billion in capital expenditures to boost its capabilities in detecting and blocking scam and spam messages of international and domestic sources, including app-to-person and person-to-person SMS.
Through these efforts, Globe was able to block 784 million scam and spam messages from January to July this year. It also deactivated 14,058 scam-linked SIMs and blacklisted 8,973 others, aside from blocking 610 domains or URLs.
Globe is also helping customers equip themselves against online scammers and learn about creating a safer online environment through modules accessible for free through its Digital Thumbprint Program via GlobeBridgecom.