New Delhi, May 27 (UNI) Continuing its war against cybercrime and related frauds, the Department of Telecom (DoT) has “blacklisted” several principal entities owning eight SMS headers which were used for sending messages to end users for fraudulent activities, on an information shared by the Ministry of Home Affairs.
The DoT in collaboration with the MHA, has taken decisive action to protect citizens from potential SMS fraud through the Sanchar Saathi initiative, the DoT said in a statement adding the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), MHA, provided information about misuse of eight SMS Headers for sending fraudulent communications for committing cyber-crime.
In response to this information, the DoT said that it was noted that more than 10,000 fraudulent messages were sent using these eight headers in the past three months. “The Principal Entities which were owner of these eight SMS Headers have been blacklisted.”
None of these Principal Entities, SMS Headers or templates can now be used to send SMS by any telecom operator, DoT said, adding all 73 SMS Headers and 1,522 SMS content templates owned by these Principal Entities have been blacklisted.
DoT has appealed to citizens saying they can report suspected fraud communications at Chakshu facility on Sanchar Saathi to help DoT in prevention of misuse of telecom resources for cyber-crime and financial frauds.
“The DoT has prevented further potential victimization of citizens by blacklisting these entities. DoT reiterates its commitment to safeguarding citizens against cybercrime,” it said.
Under the clause “Prohibition of Mobile Numbers for Telemarketing” it is not permitted to use mobile numbers for telemarketing activities. If a consumer uses their telephone connection to send promotional messages, their connection will be liable for disconnection on the first complaint, and their name and address may be blacklisted for a period of two years.
On ways to identify Telemarketing Calls, the DoT said Telemarketing calls can be identified by their prefixes — 180, 140, and 10-digit numbers are not permitted for telemarketing.
It asked users to report spam, dial “1909” or use the DND (Do Not Disturb) service.
