PLDT and Smart Communications have blocked more than 23 million ‘smishing’ messages from June 11 to 14. These SMS messages contain three URLs identified as phishing sites.
‘Smishing’ or SMS phishing is a form of social engineering done through text messages to deceive victims into thinking that these messages were sent by legitimate organizations such as banks, recruitment agencies, tour operators, and other companies. These messages often contain links to websites that lure victims into revealing personal information.
The PLDT group’s latest attempt at stopping ‘smishing’ messages from reaching customers has expanded earlier efforts to prevent these harmful messages from reaching customers. From January to May this year, PLDT and Smart have blocked more than 600,000 text messages linked to smishing, hoaxes, and spamming.
To further protect customers from these fraudulent activities, the group had blocked almost 78,000 SIMs related to smishing from January to May of this year, more than doubling their efforts in the same period last year.
The extensive cyber defenses that PLDT and Smart have put up also cover cyberspace. From mid-February to May this year, PLDT and Smart have blocked more than 500 domains specifically linked to smishing while the Group has further blocked more than 10,000 domains tied to phishing.
Do not click or tap on links sent to you via text messages. These are made to look like it came from legitimate organizations such as banks, recruitment agencies, tour operators, and other companies. In truth, these are ‘smishing’ attempts.
PLDT and Smart have been fortifying their cybersecurity infrastructure, investing nearly ₱3 billion in 2021, to safeguard the public against emerging cyber threats and vulnerabilities, including online fraud and other criminal activities.
The efforts of PLDT and Smart to detect and block malicious messages, including SIMs and websites tied to fraudulent activities, are fundamental to the PLDT Group’s much broader program to elevate the quality of customer experience by protecting them from threats and attacks.
