The government has taken a big step against SMS scammers by blacklisting eight ‘principal entities’ responsible for sending over 10,000 fake messages in the last three months, according to an official release.
According to the release, the Department of Telecom (DoT), working with the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), under the Sanchar Saathi initiative had taken decisive actions to fight SMS fraud and protect people. The Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) under MHA provided information about how these eight groups were misusing SMS headers to commit cybercrimes.
These 10,000 fraudulent messages were sent using eight specific SMS headers owned by these entities. Now, none of these groups, headers, or message templates can be used by any telecom company to send SMS. This move by the DoT aims to prevent more people from becoming victims of such scams.
8 PE, 73 SMS Headers blacklisted
"All the 8 PEs along with the 73 SMS Headers and 1522 SMS content templates owned by them have been blacklisted. None of these Principal Entities, SMS Headers or templates can now be used to send SMS by any telecom operator. The DoT has prevented further potential victimisation of citizens by blacklisting these entities," the release said.
In the telecom world, 'principal entities' are businesses or legal groups that send commercial messages to subscribers via SMS. A header is a unique code assigned to these entities for sending such messages.
The government has made it clear that it will not tolerate the victimisation of citizens through such scams. It urges people to report any suspicious messages through the Chakshu facility on Sanchar Saathi to help prevent telecom resources from being misused for cybercrimes and financial frauds.
"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," the release said.
Govt warns against using mobile numbers for telemarketing
Additionally, the government warns against using mobile numbers for telemarketing. If anyone is found using their phone connection for promotional messages, their connection may be disconnected upon the first complaint, and their details could be blacklisted for two years. Telemarketing calls can be identified by their prefixes, such as 180 and 140, while 10-digit numbers are not allowed for telemarketing.
To report spam, people can call 1909 or use the Do Not Disturb (DND) service, the statement added.
(With PTI Inputs)
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