The Department of Telecommunications (DoT), in collaboration with the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), has taken decisive action to protect citizens from potential SMS fraud through the Sanchar Saathi initiative, the Ministry of Communications said on Monday.
The Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), MHA, provided information about the misuse of eight SMS headers for sending fraudulent communications for committing cybercrime.
According to an action taken report (ATR) by DoT, more than 10,000 fraudulent messages were sent using these eight headers in the past three months. The principal entities that were owners of these eight SMS headers were blacklisted.
All the 73 SMS headers and 1,522 SMS content templates owned by these principal entities were blacklisted.
None of these principal entities, SMS headers, or templates can now be used to send SMS to any telecom operator.
The DoT has prevented further potential victimisation of citizens by blacklisting these entities. The DoT reiterates its commitment to safeguarding citizens against cybercrime.
Citizens can report suspected fraud communications at the Chakshu facility on Sanchar Saathi to help DoT in the prevention of misuse of telecom resources for cyber-crime and financial frauds.
“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 two years,” the Ministry said.
Telemarketing calls can be identified by their prefixes: 180, 140, and 10-digit numbers are not permitted for telemarketing.
To report spam, dial 1909 or use the DND (Do Not Disturb) service.