(PNA photo by Robert Oswald P. Alfiler)
MANILA – Mobile users have been urged to take advantage of their smartphone’s built-in SMS spam filters to combat the recent rise of spam and malicious messages from unknown senders.
Globe Telecommunications Inc. chief information security officer Anton Bonifacio said mobile users can take advantage of spam filters by installing applications such as Google Messages on Android.
“While our cybersecurity team continues to work on anti-spam and anti-scam initiatives on the network side, customers can also make use of tools on their own devices to help protect themselves,” Bonifacio said in a public advisory Thursday.
If spam or malicious message manages to go through both their phone’s and their network’s filters, such messages can be reported to Globe by visiting https://www.globe.com.ph/stop-spam or directly to the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC).
He said customer protection and internet safety initiatives have become a priority amid increased online activity brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The company blocked a total of 1.15 billion scam and spam messages, around 7,000 mobile numbers linked to scammers, and 2,000 unofficial social media accounts and phishing sites in 2021,” Bonifacio said.
He reminded the public to never open or clock on links from unknown senders or reply to such messages.
Globe, he said, blocks spam messages through “a series of filters and threat intelligence systems” that monitor traffic to find spam campaigns and active spammers both “on-net and inbound.”
“Within the first quarter of 2022, Globe has already blocked 203 phishing sites including 112 bank and 91 GCash phishing sites pretending to be from the legitimate pages of these organizations,” Bonifacio said. (PNA)
