The government has decided to block messages from invalid numbers by verifying caller IDs in collaboration with the Korea Telecommunications Operators Association (KTOA) and the three major mobile carriers. The Ministry of Science and ICT and KTOA announced that they will launch the ‘Illegal Spam Number Blocking System’ on the 17th, which can verify and preemptively block numbers used for illegal spam.
Illegal spam has become a serious social issue, causing economic damage by being used for phishing and smishing beyond mere user inconvenience. A significant portion of mass text illegal spam is sent by altering the caller ID to canceled, suspended, or unassigned numbers to evade tracking.
In response, the Ministry of Science and ICT, as a follow-up to the ‘Comprehensive Measures to Prevent Illegal Spam’ announced last November, decided to establish a blocking system that verifies the validity of mass text caller IDs in real-time in collaboration with KTOA and wired and wireless telecom operators. Through this system, text relay and resale companies can verify the validity of mass text caller IDs, and mobile carriers can preemptively block illegal spam sent from invalid numbers.
Additionally, the Ministry of Science and ICT established preemptive blocking standards for international mass texts in October, requiring international text operators to comply with the same legal and technical obligations as domestic operators. Last month, they also introduced Google’s Enhanced Fraud Protection (EFP) to block malware installation on mobile phones, furthering efforts to provide tangible illegal spam countermeasures.