Telstra is responding to a wave of scam messages on its network with a filter designed to block messages before they reach mobile devices.
Key points:
- Losses from SMS scams have increased by 421% over the past year
- Telecom providers have come under increasing pressure from the government to act
- Telstra’s system works as an email spam filter, scanning texts and blocking them if they look suspicious
Scammers are increasingly targeting Australians with malicious and malicious messages that employ a number of cunning tricks to trick people into handing over sensitive information, including to send money.
According to ScamWatch of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), Australians lost $ 100 million to phone, call and text scams last year, up from $ 48 million in 2020.
Telstra says reports of malicious text on Android devices increased from 50 in 2020 to 11,000 the following year.
In the last year, it claims to have blocked more than 100 million scam calls.
So how does the scam SMS filter work and why did it take so long for text messages to receive a technology that email has had for years?
The filter automatically scans the content and source of the text
Telstra didn’t say exactly how the technology works, other than that it automatically scans text messages for suspicious content and features.
In a post on its website announcing the filter, Telstra stated:
“We are applying knowledge of what scam text messages look like to block them at the network level.
“Automatic computer scan selects suspicious content such as malicious links and combines it with other patterns and characteristics such as time, sender, number of messages sent and recipient.”
Furthermore, it is not yet clear how effective the filter will be.
Telstra says it has tested the feature in a pilot program with 2,500 employees over the past three months and that participants reported “a reduction in the number of scam SMS messages they received.”
Other overseas networks have reported success with scam filters.
EE, a UK telecom provider, introduced a spam filter in July 2021.
Over the next three months, it blocked over 42 million spam and scam messages and saw an 85% drop in customer reports of scam SMS.
Paul Haskell-Dowland, a computer and security expert at Edith Cowan University, said the filter would work like those that filter spam from your inbox.
“It will look at message volumes to see if thousands of messages are coming from a mobile number,” he said.
“And it will look at the content of the message and determine if it’s a format that’s already seen and classified as spam.”
Messages that prove difficult to automatically classify can be checked manually, he added.
If that happens, Telstra said, “the details of the recipients will remain masked.”
Why did it take so long for text messages to receive a spam filter?
While welcome, Telstra’s spam filter is an “incredibly late decision,” said Professor Haskell-Dowland.
More than a decade ago, email spam clogging inboxes was having a “very real impact” on business, while the recent spate of malicious SMS was generally an “end user problem” – a problem. for individual customers, but not for businesses themselves.
Eventually, however, growing public and government pressure led telecom providers to do something to address the problem, Professor Haskell-Dowland said.
“I suspect there was no commercial drive to address the problem,” he said.
In December 2020, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) established an industry code aimed at reducing the number of scam calls.
The Reducing Scam Calls code, developed in partnership with the telecommunications industry, defines processes to identify, track, block and otherwise stop scam calls.
It was a direct recommendation from ACMA’s Anti-Fraud Action Plan, released in November 2019.
That plan included a proposal to develop enforceable obligations for telecom providers to “implement and upgrade SMS filtering technology” by the second quarter of 2020.
The ACCC welcomed Telstra’s announcement of an SMS spam filter.
“The ACCC is delighted to see vendors take steps to meet their obligations under the Call Reduction Scam Code,” a spokesperson said.
“We will continue to monitor the scam rates of text messages received from the public to evaluate the effectiveness of the measures.”
How bad is the spam spike?
ACCC’s ScamWatch saw a 124% increase in SMS scam reports in the 12 months to February 2022.
During that time, reported financial losses from SMS scams more than quintupled.
The real figure is likely higher, a spokesperson for the ACCC said.
“From previous research undertaken by the ACCC, under-reporting is prevalent in all types of scams, so we can only assume that there are far more people affected by these scams and not reporting them.”
Losses from SMS scams are dwarfed by losses from phone calls.
Of the $ 100 million Australians lost to phone scams in 2021, SMS scams accounted for 10%.
The pandemic has seen more people working from home and isolating themselves from those around them, which has left them vulnerable to scammers, experts say.
Will this stop politicians from sending me election text messages?
The last federal election saw Clive Palmer send unsolicited messages to millions of voters as part of his campaign.
With another election announced soon, you may wonder if the new filter will break these texts or those of another politician or party.
The short answer is that this will not be the case, Professor Haskell-Dowland said.
Federal legislation governing electronic communications spam provides an exemption for political campaign material, as long as it is not commercial in nature.
“Clive Palmer’s messages fall into the category of election propaganda, so it’s perfectly legal to send what many would consider spam messages.”
What if I’m not with Telstra?
If you are with a third party provider that uses the Telstra network, your messages may still be filtered, depending on the agreement between Telstra and the provider.
Third party providers are those that offer a telecommunications service but do not have their own physical network infrastructure, but move to one of the Telstra, Optus or Vodafone networks.
If you’re with Optus or Vodafone, chances are you’ll soon have a spam filter as well, Professor Haskell-Dowland said.
“I think what we will see is a cascade effect now that a major supplier has introduced a filter.
“Over time this will become the norm, just as it has happened with e-mail.”
A Vodafone spokesperson said the company introduced a “sophisticated SMS firewall” in 2020.
“Our system blocked more than 522 million scam text messages in the last year alone,” they said.
“In the same period, we also identified and blocked over 26 million scam calls reaching our customers.”
Optus said they already have “advanced filtering and machine learning [its] SMS systems “.
“While we do not speak publicly about our security measures, we are pleased that more of the industry is now implementing similar systems,” a spokesperson said.
“Since December 2020, Optus has already blocked more than 230 million scam calls.”
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