The rate at which consumers receive and send emails and text messages is increasing every minute, which provides spammers an opportunity to take advantage of the mobile and Internet network.
In the Philippines, email spam and fraud are very rampant. In fact, the country ranks 48th in terms of volume of email spam sent. Fraud and phishing frequently target campaign to specific carrier or specific geography. Spammers target their audience and bet on the odds that the recipient will believe the SMS was sent to them specifically.
To help service providers address this issue, messaging threat protection provider Cloudmark, Inc. has introduced in the Philippines the company’s carrier-grade security platform which delivers protection against messaging abuse. The Philippines is the second among three other Southeast Asian countries, Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia, where Cloudmark has established a presence.
“There is an increased expectation from service providers to ensure a spam-free network and provide customers with real time solutions against messaging threats,” said Cloudmark’s Chief Technology Officer, Neil Cook. Cook adds that carriers are losing revenues as a result of spam SMS campaigns.
Cook explains that Cloudmark helps carriers identify fraudulent activity, malware from messaging streams, and grey route traffic. This helps carriers maximize their revenues, reduce both capital expenditures and operating expenses, and increase customer satisfaction by preventing the onslaught of unwanted and potentially harmful messages on personal devices.
According to Cook, the company provides solutions to the following users: communication service providers, Internet service providers, email hosting providers, mobile network operators, cloud computing providers, and social media networks.
Research compiled from Cloudmark’s global threat database reports that 72% of all emails sent from the Philippines were flagged as spam this year alone, with the majority going to the US, Australia, Japan, Great Britain, and Italy.
The company’s global threat database also reveals an increasing prevalence of SMS spam in Asia-Pacific. Filipino mobile and SMS services subscribers have shown high levels of dissatisfaction towards SMS spam, particularly in comparison to other countries in APAC. A number of blogs and social media sites have been set up to explicitly expose SMS spam and express frustration at their continued delivery.
As a result, political efforts were made to stop mobile abuse. Senators in the Philippines have recently filed three bills aimed at controlling electronic spam: SB 1567, 1583, and 1384.
Cloudmark estimates that nearly 800 million SMS spam messages are sent across the Philippines in any given month. Bulk or around 81% of SMS spam are identified as financially themed – including payday loans, credit card offers and investing “tips”. Majority of the reported spam in the Philippines was sent using the English language, however credit balance theft scams were more regularly conducted in Tagalog. These would often take the form of messages asking for credit transfers with the impression the sender was someone known by the recipient.
The Messaging Threat Report conducted by Cloudmark in 2012 showed that there were more than 350,000 unique unsolicited mobile spam variants last year, with the month of December recording the highest rate. It has also been noted that spammers have favorite category of attacks and frequently changing their messaging methods to avoid being detected.
