SMS or Short Messaging Service is preferred by scammers for targeting a large number of potential victims due to its widespread usage. Instant delivery of SMS messages creates urgency, pressuring individuals to act without questioning their legitimacy. SMS also provides direct access to users’ devices, making messages highly visible and difficult to ignore.
Scammers exploit and leverage limited security measures to manipulate or forge messages. Also, SMS scams require less technical sophistication than other online scams, making them appealing to scammers.
The Edge reports that Deputy Communications and Digital Minister Teo Nie Ching revealed that a significant number of suspicious SMSes, totalling 581 million, have been successfully blocked from 2021 until May 31 of this year. Additionally, within the same period, 237,999 mobile and fixed lines that were identified as senders of questionable SMSes were terminated.
Teo explained that implementing restrictions on such SMSes involves thorough investigation, including verifying that the received SMS’s URL links only act as intermediaries to a portal or application. She mentioned the challenges of verifying the authenticity of links within SMSes, as they often utilise foreign domain names hosted in other countries, making it difficult to identify potential phishing attempts.
Teo provided these details in response to Senator Datuk Seri S Vell Paari’s query at Dewan Negara on 19 June 2023, in which he sought an explanation for the recent order issued by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) to telecommunication companies, instructing them to block URL links in SMSes to protect consumers from online fraud.
Recently, MCMC has disseminated a SMS where it says “starting 2 July, SMS containing links, requesting personal data & phone no, will be blocked to prevent online fraud crime.”
Besides that, in response to a supplementary question from another Senator regarding personal data protection, Teo informed that the Ministry of Communications and Digital (KKD) is currently reviewing the Personal Data Protection Act 2010 (Act 709). The revised version of the act is expected to be presented in Parliament next year, aiming to enhance the law and provide more comprehensive protection to prevent the misuse of personal data.
