Filipinos lost ‘millions of dollars’ due to text scams — CICC

A top official of the Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center (CICC) said Tuesday that Filipino mobile phone users lost “millions of dollars” due to the barrage of scam text messages that recently contained the names of recipients.
 
In a chance interview with reporters, CICC Deputy Executive Director Mary Rose Magsaysay said that foreign and local syndicates are behind the proliferation of spam text messages.
 
“It’s a collaborative effort between local and international syndicates,” Magsaysay said in a mix of Filipino and English.

CICC, an attached agency of the Department of Information and Communications Technology, said in a Senate inquiry last month that it was investigating six syndicates behind the text scams.
 
Asked if the agency has an estimate of how much these syndicates have already stolen from Filipino mobile phone users, Magsaysay said, “It’s in the millions of dollars.”
 
The CICC official also said that the agency is already building cases against the syndicates behind the text scams.
 
As part of efforts to combat scam text messages, Globe Telecom has temporarily blocked text messages that contain website links.
 
On September 12, the National Telecommunications Commission ordered telcos to block URLs, links, and quick response codes on text messages amid the proliferation of spam text messages, some of which contain the recipient's full name.
 
In her presentation, during the signing of a memorandum of understanding between Palo Alto Networks and the United States Agency for International Development, Magsaysay said 37% of online users in the Philippines reported some form of cyberattack in 2020.
 
“At least 73% of consumer information from MSMEs (micro, small, and medium enterprises) is lost to attackers, higher than 56% across Asia-Pacific,” she said. — VBL, GMA News