The figures reveal an alarming persistence – and rising complexity – in telecom fraud schemes. The ITW World Leaders’ Discussion board (GLF) just lately reported 92% of carriers are prioritising fraud prevention. To dam the quantity of calls it did in 2023, BICS utilised its FraudGuard resolution, leveraging an in depth community of over 900 service suppliers. It makes use of a crowdsourcing mannequin to robotically analyse BICS’ world site visitors and shield it from assaults 24/7.
Jorn Vercamert, VP for Buyer Options and Merchandise at BICS, mentioned: “Belief in communications is being diminished by robocalls. It’s not simply the quantity, however the sophistication of fraudulent assaults swarming operators, that’s inflicting vital monetary and reputational loss. That’s going to make trade collaboration initiatives between telcos and regulators extra necessary than ever. BICS has been advocating for higher trade collaboration for years, actively contributing to discussions being held by the i3 Discussion board, and we’re proud to have just lately joined its One Consortium initiative with this goal in thoughts.”
Past robocall assaults, SMS frauds, extra particularly smishing assaults (the fraudulent observe of sending textual content messages purporting to be from respected corporations to be able to induce people to disclose private info), are on a steep rising curve. In whole, BICS proactively blocked 473 million smishing makes an attempt. This aligns with trade findings from the GLF in 2023, the place 61% of operators reported greater messaging fraud – double that of 2022 (35 %). European residents are the primary goal: 80 % of the smishing assaults recognized by BICS have focused EU residents (54 million people), and 80 % of assaults originated utilizing EU calling numbers.
The highest nations originating smishing assaults embody France, Poland, Chad, Spain and Germany, whereas 30% of these smishing assaults detected and blocked by BICS focused Belgium and UK customers because the supposed vacation spot.
Katia Gonzalez, head of fraud prevention and safety providers at BICS, mentioned: “Robotexts are on a ticking time-bomb trajectory to overhaul robocalls, and in my opinion, will grow to be a a lot higher risk to customers and enterprises than voice fraud.
“It’s simpler to get somebody to interact with over SMS than a name, that means it’s so much simpler for fraudsters to maximise influence by way of SMS. Sadly, it’s extra advanced matter in comparison with Voice fraud and operators and companies have much less expertise relating to staving off SMS fraud.
“There’s usually an excellent quantity of regulatory strain already coming in on the voice entrance nowadays, however we’d like the identical for SMS. Telcos and authorities our bodies ought to unite round making a regulatory framework that enables for utilising SMS content material in a managed and privacy-sensible method to identify fraud.”
The GLF just lately named BICS among the many record of twenty-two carriers compliant with the GLF Code of Conduct for combatting fraud site visitors. The code, established in 2018 in partnership with the i3Forum, units forth rules for enhancing collaboration and effectiveness in preventing fraud. Juniper Analysis additionally recognised BICS’ FraudGuard platform with a Telco Innovation Award for its effectiveness in mitigating worldwide voice fraud.
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