Fake texts sent by cybercriminals. Who hasn’t received one? But Belgian telecoms minister Petra De Sutter (Flemish green) hopes they will soon be a thing of the past. She has now reached an agreement with telecom operators Proximus and Telenet aimed at blocking fraudulent text messages. The operators are getting two million euros to develop the necessary software to block fraudulent texts.
The texts are sent by cybercriminals impersonating government bodies, banks and the like with the sole aim of defrauding you. They contain a link. Click on the link and the fraudster can start his or her attempts to con you out of your readies or even gain access to your bank account.
The phenomenon is called smishing and is related to phishing when fraudulent links are sent out by email.
Today 93% of Belgians own a smartphone, but half admit they never really read up on the dangers of cybercrime. Over a quarter of those polled during research undertaken by the Leuven tech and research centre Imec say they are not particularly vigilant when clicking on a link in a text.
Minister De Sutter is concerned about the figures. She’s worried people will fall into cybercriminals’ traps: “Last year the FLUBOT virus claimed thousands of victims. People clicked on a link in a text allowing an app to access mobile banking codes”.
The government favours a two-pronged approach: increasing public awareness of the dangers, but also installing spam filters that stop the texts and protect people.
Two million euros is being released to allow the telecom operators to develop software to stop fraudulent texts. The software should be up and running within the year with cash coming from the European Recovery Plan.
Telecom operators today already stop many fraudulent texts, but the software should allow an even more efficient approach. Suspect texts will automatically set alarm bells ringing allowing the operators to intervene.
Minister De Sutter also issued a warning with regard to the festive season. “It’s Christmas for cybercriminals too. Everybody is looking forward to a parcel at this time of year and fraudsters using fraudulent texts and emails can easily wrong-foot people at this time of year”.