In the first three months of this year, Telia prevented 2,6 million attacks aimed at Lithuanian mobile subscribers. The automatic filtering system for fake mobile numbers (spoofing), which blocked calls from fraudsters pretending to be banks, well-known companies and even representatives of state institutions, helped the company protect its users last year.
"In December of last year, we were the first in Lithuania to activate an automated solution for identifying fake phone numbers in our network, which stopped 10 calls on the very first day. calls from foreign scammers. Since then, the volume of fake phone numbers blocked every day has only increased, indicating the effectiveness of the system and the decreasing success of attacks. Unfortunately, there is no XNUMX% protection against foreign telephone fraudsters yet, because operators can only block their own numbers effectively, and the criminals themselves are also constantly looking for alternative ways of attack," says Vytautas Bučinskas, head of Telia's risk management and sustainability.
He added that the company takes this issue very seriously and promises to take additional steps to protect customers in the future. "This is not only a question of our risk, but also of social responsibility and sustainability," V. Bučinskas notes.
Lulls even the most suspicious victims
Before the introduction of preventive measures, calls from foreign fraudsters had already become a kind of everyday life in Lithuania. A large part of the population has at least once seen a familiar Lithuanian number on their phone screen, where the caller introduces himself on behalf of a well-known institution and asks to perform various suspicious actions.
Fraudsters can do this by calling not directly from their own phone number, but through an intermediary station that allows them to disguise themselves as the number and name of the contact of the desired party. This technical solution makes it possible to carry out attacks from anywhere in the world and effectively lull the victim's vigilance. Often, even checking the number displayed on the phone's screen online reveals that it actually belongs to the company or institution mentioned by the fraudster.
"Fraudsters can pretend to be representatives of your bank, falsely inform you about an allegedly hijacked bank account and, as a justification for this, ask you to confirm your identity and reveal your login details. They may impersonate the State Tax Inspectorate and ask you to "update" your contact information over the phone, asking for your address and social security number. Also - to act as police representatives and demand payment of a fine. In other words, there are no limits to the creativity of fraudsters, but their goal is almost always the same - embezzlement of private data and forcing them to make certain payments fraudulently," V. Bučinskas explains in detail the essence of the scheme.
Every tenth call is from foreign fraudsters
The impressive scale of fraud using fake phone numbers is also confirmed by statistics. During the first 2024 successfully stopped two and a half million attack attempts during the quarter, which was one tenth of all calls made on Telia's network. It is simply impossible to block such a huge amount of fake numbers manually, so automated solutions are indispensable in order to protect the private data and savings of Lithuanian residents.
"The filters enabled in our network have already produced results, and we believe that filtering fake numbers will become the market standard across Europe, as fraudsters increasingly use artificial intelligence (AI) to create attack texts and voice recordings, which make their lies even more convincing," he explains. Telia representative.
The effectiveness of blocking fake numbers is also betrayed by the changing tactics of criminals. "Telia" has already recorded more than one case when a Swedish telephone number resembling it, such as +46 8600 00 000 or +46 0600 00 000, is imitated.
