New Delhi: In a major relief for telecom customers the department of telecom said it has partnered telecom companies for the phased identification of overseas spoofed callers and blocking them. The move is aimed at ease of use for telecom customers and protecting their personal information, according to an official statement.
The telecom department plans to identify and block calls made from international numbers that pose as domestic callers in a method called spoofing, according to the statement. These calls are often made by cybercriminals based abroad.
The system will be deployed at 2 levels. At the first level, telecom service providers will root out calls spoofed from numbers of their own subscribers. In the second step, the telcos will weed out spoofed calls made from numbers of subscribers of other telcos, according to the statement.
What is call spoofing?
Overseas cybercriminals spoof calls by exploiting the Calling Line Identity (CLI). This is used to hide the origin of the place from where a call is being made. These criminals intimate subscribers by threatening them with mobile disconnection, fake arrests, and action by law enforcement agencies, among others.
In more recent cases, callers accused subscribers of drug peddling, alleged involvement in sex rackets and other such crimes. The department of telecom has roped in 4 telcos to join the programme for blocking spoofed calls. So far, the government and telcos have been able to block one-third of all 4.5 million spoofed calls, according to the statement. The department plans to implement the next phase for 100 per cent prevention of such calls soon, it said in the statement.
The telecom department is working with 4 telcos to block calls made by cybercriminals based abroad and spoofed using a domestic number to con gullible mobile users. Biz News Business News – Personal Finance News, Share Market News, BSE/NSE News, Stock Exchange News Today
