Safety first: Our measures to protect against SMS fraud and spam

In today’s digital era, spam, smishing and SMS fraud are unfortunately widespread and pose a serious threat to businesses and consumers. In this article, we want to be transparent about the measures we take as a company to do our part to prevent this type of fraudulent activity.

Overview of terms

Before we delve deeper, it’s important to clarify the basic terms that play a role in our topic. From SMS spam to SMS fraud and smishing, these terms are crucial to understanding the challenges of modern communication. So let’s briefly discuss the definitions of these terms to gain a solid understanding of the topic.

What is spam?

Spam is essentially unsolicited messages sent in bulk to email addresses or phone numbers. They usually contain advertisements or fraudulent content. Because recipients haven’t agreed to receive them, they’re typically unwanted. There’s a risk that spam may distribute malicious software, and many fraud attempts begin with spam messages.

What is smishing?

Smishing is a version of phishing, a form of fraud in which personal and financial data is tapped. The attackers often pretend to be a reputable company, such as a bank, a shipping service provider or similar. If the attackers obtain the data, they have access to the victim’s accounts, for example, and can cause damage there. It is not uncommon for victims to be “locked out” immediately and no longer have access to their accounts.

What is SMS fraud?

SMS fraud covers all fraudulent activities that are carried out via SMS. This also includes smishing. In most cases, recipients are tricked into disclosing their data or transferring money to the fraudsters.

Two very common examples are smishing text messages in which information about an alleged order is shared (for example: “We were unable to deliver your parcel, click here to prevent it from being returned”) or in which a financial company requests action, for example because an unauthorized transaction has allegedly been carried out. Perhaps you have already received such a text message yourself.

The dangers of spam, smishing and SMS fraud

SMS fraud and smishing can cause great damage, both financial and personal. When individuals fall victim to spam, SMS fraud or smishing, it can undermine their confidence in legitimate business practices and the protection of their personal data. This not only has an impact on individuals, but can also affect the reputation of companies that strive for honest marketing and take the protection of their customers seriously.

What will change for me as a customer?

You do not have to make any changes to your account yourself. Under certain circumstances, however, the changes may be noticeable in your account. Read on to find out the details.

Verification of accounts

When you create an account, it goes through an automatic verification process. If your account has not yet been verified, it can only be used to a limited extent.

This means that

• SMS to high-risk countries may be rejected
  There is a particularly high risk of spam and fraud for certain target countries.
• Certain sender IDs can be rejected
  There are sender IDs that are used particularly frequently in fraud attempts.
• SMS with links can be rejected
  Links are an elementary part of many phishing attempts.
• Certain content can be rejected
  Some content is used particularly frequently in phishing attempts. In addition, certain content is prohibited in some target countries.

These measures serve to minimize potential risks and increase the reliability of our service.

What to do if SMS are rejected?

If you experience the above restrictions in your account, you can contact our support team to find out if a failed verification is the reason. Our team will then guide you through the verification process.

Whitelisting of links

In certain situations, your SMS may not be delivered if it contains a link. To avoid this, you can have your link whitelisted before it is sent. To do this, please send a message to support@seven.io.

Our measures lead to greater trust on the part of end customers

The continuous improvement of our security measures is crucial to protect customers and companies from the dangers of spam, SMS fraud and smishing. By introducing measures such as account verification and link whitelisting, we aim to minimize potential risks and increase the reliability of our service.

Although these steps are intended to combat spam and fraud, they may affect the user experience in individual cases. However, we are always available to answer questions and help you with any restrictions.

Our aim is to make sending SMS as secure as possible so that your recipients can have confidence in the messages that they receive.

Do you have any questions or suggestions? Our support team looks forward to hearing from you.

Headerbild by Jcomp via iStock, adjusted color