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A new intelligence-sharing pilot program is capable of sharing information in “near real time”.
The Commonwealth Bank and telco Vodafone have announced a new intelligence-sharing initiative to combat a rising tide of scam text messages.
The program is currently in a pilot stage, but it is already operating at near real-time speeds, allowing CBA to proactively block fraudulent transactions, while Vodafone is using it to actively disrupt scammers.
The announcement comes as Scamwatch has reported that the total amount of money lost to text scams in 2023 alone is over $24 billion.
“Not only are scammers becoming increasingly sophisticated, but we tend to see an uptick in attempted and successful scams at certain times of the year, such as the festive season,” said James Roberts, general manager of group fraud at CBA, in a statement. “With this heightened risk, we recommend people remain alert for potential scams, including those delivered via SMS with messages imitating major courier or postal companies.”
Vodafone’s Simone Sant, general counsel and general manager of corporate security, said the intelligence-sharing program is a way to combat the growing number of scams targeting Australians.
“This year alone, Vodafone has blocked more than 67.8 million SMS scams from reaching Australians,” Sant said.
“Our analysis shows fraudsters are scheming up new ways to scam customers out of their hard-earned cash in the lead-up to the holidays season, with Vodafone blocking more than 17.6 million SMS scams in September and October, a 45 per cent year-on-year increase.”
CBA is working with a number of partners to combat scams and last month, it announced that Bendigo Bank and fraud monitoring firm Satori were rolling out its NameCheck anti-scam tool.
“With scams and fraud costing Australians and businesses billions of dollars annually, it’s clear a whole-of-ecosystem response is needed to combat this problem,” said Mike Vacy-Lyle, CBA group executive for business banking, at the time.
“We are proud to be able to extend our industry-leading technology to others and contribute to protecting more Australians against cyber criminals.”
David Hollingworth has been writing about technology for over 20 years, and has worked for a range of print and online titles in his career. He is enjoying getting to grips with cyber security, especially when it lets him talk about Lego.
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