The Communications Regulatory Authority (CRA) has ordered mobile operators to follow a procedure that will allow them to identify, flag and stop fraudulent text messages sent by fraudsters.
“For the first time, we have established a procedure to identify fake text messages. Mobile service providers will now have to identify fake SMS from the overall SMS traffic and thus prevent users from losing personal data or finances”, says Jūratė Šovienė, the Chairperson of the council of CRA.
She said that fake messages are a very common tool used by scammers, which is also what CRA experts hear from Lithuanian seniors when they run special workshops ‘No one is forgotten’ and teach them how to identify digital scammers.
From now on, operators will have to use filtering tools to detect links to web pages and assess whether they are on the National Cyber Security Centre’s (NCSC) list of harmful web resources. If the link is on the list, such SMS messages will be blocked.
In other cases, where the link in the SMS is not included in the NCSC’s lists but raises reasonable suspicion, the SMS recipient will be warned of a potentially fraudulent SMS and the link will have to be forwarded by the operator to the NCSC for verification.
According to J. Šovienė, given that SMS fraud methods are constantly evolving and improving, the CRA has determined that SMS operators should also consider other SMS that do not meet the criteria set out in the procedure to be fraudulent or potentially fraudulent.
“We want to empower operators to react swiftly to new cases of fraud and prevent them. So if they have information suggesting that an SMS may be fake, they must take action to protect the consumer,” emphasises J. Šovienė, the Chairperson of CRA.
This is not the first CRA’s decision to crack down on digital fraudsters. Last year, mobile operators were ordered to block access to harmful internet resources and to forward only text messages that match the identifiers specified by the senders.
Another obligation that will come into force in 2023 is to block Lithuanian fixed numbers when calls are initiated abroad. Operators must block and not transit calls originating from fixed and mobile numbers or service numbers if the numbers used are not authorised by the CRA and are not assigned to specific service providers.
Updated on 2024-03-22