MANILA - PLDT Inc and its wireless unit Smart Communications on Friday said they have blocked almost 78,000 SIMs related to smishing from January to May in a bid to protect consumers from cyber attacks,

The total is more than double the entire 2021, the telco said in a statement.

Since the start of the year, the group said it has been blocking an average of 15,000 SIMs every month that are involved in smishing, mostly offering jobs to victimize users to release their personal information.

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The information is then used to access bank accounts or digital wallets.

“We, at PLDT and Smart, have proactively blocked mobile numbers that have been involved in smishing activities. Once detected by our team, even in the absence of a complaint from our customers, we shut that mobile number out of our network," PLDT and Smart FVP and Chief Information Security Officer Angel Redoble said.

The National Telecommunications Commission in late May ordered telco operators to warn the public against the resurgence of SMS scams or smishing masked as job offers.

• NTC orders telcos to warn public against job text scams

PLDT said it has added tools to expand detection to identify numbers used in fraudulent activities. PLDT said it invested nearly P3 billion in cybersecurity infrastructure to safeguard the public against emerging threats.

Over 500 domains linked to smishing from mid-February to May this year were also blocked. Since July 2021, over 10,000 domains tied to phishing were blocked as well, it added.

In 2021, it said it has acquired over 200 million cyber threat intelligence information and prevented close to 300 million combined types of cyber attacks.

• Privacy body warns vs 'smishing,' urges public to block unknown numbers
• Globe says over 140,000 smishing SMS blocked in February, March

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