PLDT: Text scams came from foreign sources  

MANILA, Philippines — Smart Communications Inc., PLDT Inc.’s wireless unit, has reported that the recent deluge of text scams came from foreign groups trying to dupe Filipinos, an official said yesterday.

“It is highly possible that foreigners are behind the text scams that have plagued mobile users in the country,” PLDT first vice president and chief information security officer Angel Redoble said.

Redoble also said that Smart’s Cybersecurity Operations Group found that domestic groups are working with foreign criminals to acquire SIM cards in bulk and use these to send smishing messages.

Smishing refers to fraudulent texts that pretend to come from reputable sources to persuade the target to divulge personal and sensitive information.

Smart Communications officials believe that the latest messaging scams are sent person-to-person, unlike in previous cases wherein the perpetrators employ aggregators.

They vowed to strengthen efforts to go after those behind these smishing attempts.

Smart Communications has blocked a total of 342 million smishing attempts as of August and also deactivated at least 167,000 SIMs involved in fraud just between June and August.

Meanwhile, Ayala-led Globe Telecom Inc. scored a win against criminals involved in the illegal sale of GCash accounts.

On Wednesday, authorities arrested Mark Deo Antang of Caloocan City for violating the cybercrime prevention law.

Police caught Antang reportedly selling 556 Globe and TM SIM cards with GCash accounts in the registry.

Authorities said Antang buys GCash-registered SIMs online for P350 a piece and sells them at P600 to another user.

These GCash accounts that belong to real people end up being used by scammers to hide their identity while doing fraudulent activities, or by individuals who want to exceed their e-wallet limits for online gaming.

On the part of Globe, the telco giant has blocked 784 million text scams as of July, deactivating in the process more than 14,000 fraud-linked mobile numbers.