SMiShing on the rise

Fraudsters are increasingly targeting mobile messaging apps such as WhatsApp. A quarter (26 per cent) of chat app users say they receive an unsolicited message every day, while 49 per cent receive at least one a week. The research by global trade body Mobile Ecosystem Forum and messaging specialist CLX Communications confirmed …

[Anonymous Coward]

And what percentage of those spam SMS are actually carried via CLX networks (borged mBlox)? :P

[Martin Summers]

I couldn't believe my eyes recently when a local takeaway added me to a WhatsApp group of hundreds of people whose phone numbers they had harvested and were publicly visible to everyone. Needless to say they got blocked.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's right. CLX/mblox sent them and then Symsoft (part of CLX) block them on their anti-spam firewall. Nice. Poacher not turned game keeper, rather poacher and game keeper!

[robbiemalcolm]

CLX / Mblox are committed to fighting spam and fraud

Thank you anonymous for your comments. Less than 1% of all A2P SMS is spam or fraud related, so it doesn't make sense for any SMS provider or operator to actively encourage or permit SPAM. One of the primary reasons why enterprises and consumers trust SMS is because when compared to other communication channels, SMS is relatively unpolluted with SPAM. In the UK, the vast majority of SPAM is actually delivered via SIM farms which does not run through any provider but rather from a "consumer" handset and the only way to block this type of traffic is using a firewall. In summary CLX, Mblox and Symsoft are all committed to reducing spam and fraud over SMS because in the long run our interests are to protect this channel from unwanted messages. To this end we were founding members of the 'Future of Messaging' initiative run by the Mobile Ecosystem Forum, in which we are driving cross industry best practice to reduce spam and fraud. See our terms and conditions related to spam here - https://www.mblox.com/legal/ and I'm sure you will agree we take spam and fraud very seriously.