A recent press release from wholesale carrier BICS states they blocked 507 million fraudulent spam calls and robocalls last year, a 28 percent rise compared to 2022. 473 million SMS messages that were designed to lure recipients to phishing websites were also blocked by BICS during 2023. They estimate that their customers were saved around EUR87mn (USD93mn) as a result.
The press release includes a quote where Jorn Vercamert, VP for Customer Solutions and Products at BICS, asks for more cooperation in the fight against fraud.
It’s not just the volume, but the sophistication of fraudulent attacks swarming operators, that is causing significant financial and reputational loss. That’s going to make industry collaboration initiatives between telcos and regulators more important than ever. BICS has been advocating for greater industry collaboration for years, actively contributing to discussions being held by the i3Forum, and we’re proud to have recently joined its One Consortium initiative with this aim in mind.
BICS says much of the traffic it blocked was meant to deceive Europeans. This may be true, but caution is required when extrapolating from the fraudulent traffic patterns observed by one telco, no matter how large that telco is. BICS is owned by Belgium’s Proximus, and it would be reasonable to assume they have greater visibility of traffic in Europe than some other continents.
You can read the press release here.
