These sorts of things are often said in private. Now one vendor of blockchain technologies for fraud prevention has chosen not to be so quiet about a worry shared by many working in the communications sector.
…there appears to be a concerning loophole allowing fraudulent messages to misuse Bank Bravo’s Sender ID. This situation forces us to question the motives behind Carrier Gamma’s substantial investments. Are they truly committed to fortifying their network against fraudulent traffic? Or could these financial commitments serve as a smokescreen?
This is taken from a post recently published by CodeB on their corporate website, then republished to LinkedIn. The story appears to be hypothetical, but describes a situation where a carrier that handles A2P SMS for a bank is choosing not to identify and block deceptive messages that use the bank’s Sender ID, despite publicizing how much they have spent on systems to prevent fraud.
…we are left wondering whether the primary aim of these investments is customer protection or merely a facade designed to project an image of security.
There is a bank in Brazil called ‘Bravo’, and I already knew of the British telco called ‘Gamma’, but I suspect CodeB did not intend any harm by choosing names from the NATO phonetic alphabet and the Greek alphabet respectively. Earlier this year a US telco tried to silence criticism with the threat of defamation lawsuits but a few months later it was the target of a lawsuit claiming they had carried billions of illegal robocalls.
Whatever the motives behind CodeB’s post, I would prefer a lot more open discussion of the true extent of criminal profits earned by comms providers. I can also understand why even the most passionate anti-fraud professional may feel unable to voice suspicions in the way that CodeB has. Conversational topics like these are uncomfortable. But that is why the communications industry needs to get used to uncomfortable conversations, before the rest of the world loses confidence in our ability to deal with the enormous amounts of illegal and deceptive traffic that continues to be conveyed worldwide.
