Millions of EE customers are safer from scams as it has blocked more than 42million spam and scam texts, said EE in a statement.
Since July 2021, EE has introduced an anti-spam filter that prevents messages reaching customers by blocking them from the network. The filter has also identified and terminated over 18,000 scamming SIM cards, reducing even more scam texts at the source.
The anti-spam filter proactively blocks spam text messages by analysing patterns of content as they reach EE’s network, helping to divert smishing messages before reaching customers’ mobiles. The multi-million-pound investment helps prevent the risk of customers falling victim to scam messages and improves network security.
Constantly monitoring and evolving the filter detects and blocks common and emerging scam SMS, like missed delivery and COVID testing scams. The technology scans messages that include links or are being sent to a larger number of recipients. The new system is also able to identify new scam trends -most recently blocking a message claiming to provide information about local fuel availability triggered by the “Fuel Crisis”.
EE’s anti-spam filter works like a firewall to review SMS using AI and manually input blocking rules to decide if these are legitimate or need to be blocked. The filter uses data from sender details, content of the message including links, patterns in SMS and the volume of SMS sent from a particular number to discover and stop scam SMS.
Chris Howe, Customer Director, EE
It’s incredible to think over 42million texts have already been blocked. Despite this being a real sign of progress, we’d still urge our customers to be on their guard when it comes to receiving suspicious text messages. If something doesn’t look right, don’t click on any links and you can always report any SMS you think is suspicious to 7726.
