DoT and MHA pull the reins on SMS scammers

To protect citizens from potential SMS fraud through the Sanchar Saathi initiative, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has collaborated with the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).

Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), MHA, provided information about the misuse of eight SMS Headers for sending fraudulent communications for committing cybercrime. DoT noted that more than 10,000 fraudulent messages were sent using these eight headers in the past three months. The Principal Entities which were the owner of these eight SMS Headers were blacklisted by DoT. All the 73 SMS Headers and 1,522 SMS content templates owned by these Principal Entities got blacklisted and none of these Principal Entities, SMS Headers or templates can now be used to send SMS by any telecom operator.

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The DoT has prevented further potential victimisation of citizens by blacklisting these entities in its bid to safeguard citizens against cybercrime. Further, it shared that citizens can report suspected fraud communications at Chakshu facility on Sanchar Saathi to help DoT in prevention of misuse of telecom resources for cyber-crime and financial frauds.

Additionally, it has prohibited mobile numbers for telemarketing. If a consumer uses their telephone connection to send promotional messages, their connection will be liable for disconnection on the first complaint, and their name and address may be blacklisted for a period of two years. Telemarketing calls can be identified by their prefixes: 180, 140, and 10-digit numbers are not permitted for telemarketing. To report spam, one can dial 1909 or use the DND (Do Not Disturb) service.

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