A comms provider broke anti-scam regulations when allowing users to send 10 free messages per day, according to the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA). Known Pty Ltd, which trades using the brand name of Burst SMS, failed to check if trial customers had the rights to the Sender IDs there were using for their messages. As a consequence, at least 108 SMS messages were sent that impersonated other businesses during the month of service that the ACMA investigated. Per their report, the SMS messages copied the…
…Alpha IDs of well-known financial institutions, telcos, couriers, ride share and ticketing companies.
No punishment was given to Burst SMS. Their failure was mitigated by the fact that the accounts used by the scammers were subsequently blocked. Burst SMS also had checks in place to prevent the misuse of Sender IDs by its regular paying customers.
108 fraudulent messages is not a lot in the big scheme of things. The ACMA’s figures indicate that Australian telcos automatically block around 20 million SMS messages per month. However, it is a positive sign that the regulator is serious about closing even the smallest loopholes. Criminal profits are recycled into committing more crime, and crooks have a tendency to emulate each other. The only sure way to protect the public is to adopt a zero-tolerance stance towards any scams.
The ACMA’s investigation report can be found here.
