PLDT and Smart Sustain Relentless Blocking Efforts Against Text Scams, and OSAEC

PLDT and Smart continue to combat text-based fraud. In September 2022, Smart purged over 36,000 mobile numbers involved with phishing, smishing, and vishing from its network, raising the total number of SIMs on the blacklist to over 200,000.

These initiatives prevented almost 51 million fraudulent text messages from reaching users over the same time frame. Since January, when Smart increased its efforts against 'smishing,' the mobile service provider has prevented close to 400 million fraudulent texts from entering its network.

“Scammers are quick to adapt their strategy. But we remain relentless in protecting the public through a precision approach that clamps down on criminals without sacrificing customer experience,” said Angel Redoble, FVP and Chief Information Security Officer of PLDT and Smart.

PLDT and Smart have expanded their anti-fraud efforts in cyberspace as text scams often contain uniform resource locators (URLs) that direct customers to phishing sites. In September alone, PLDT and Smart prevented around 1.4 billion attempts to access malicious domains. By the end of September, the two telcos had blacklisted more than 5.5 million domains with URLs tied to phishing, scams, hoaxes, and other fraudulent activities.

PLDT and Smart’s Child Protection Platform also remain hard at work blocking around 220,000 attempts to open online sexual abuse and exploitation of children (OSAEC) in September. So far, PLDT and Smart have blocked more than 1.3 billion attempts to access OSAEC materials after identifying around 465,000 URLs related to online child abuse.

PLDT and Smart help curb mobile-based fraudulent activities to elevate the quality of customer experience by protecting them from threats and attacks. These efforts are also aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal No. 9 on Industries, Innovation, and Infrastructure.

The initiatives to keep children safe online underscore PLDT and Smart’s commitment to SDG 16 on promoting just, peaceful and inclusive societies including the end to abuse, exploitation, trafficking, and all forms of violence against and torture of children.

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