MANILA—Some of the spam and scam messages Filipinos have been receiving lately were sent from overseas, Globe Telecom said.

According to Globe's chief information and security officer Anton Bonifacio, the recent surge in scam and spam messages is similar to those people used to received.

"Hindi katulad dati, halimbawa, magsa-sign up ka sa service online, etc., di ba email address? Di ba dati maraming email spam. Kapag may email spam naman di ba hindi naman tayo nagagalit kay Yahoo saka kay Google. Minsan marami talaga," Bonifacio told Teleradyo.

(Unlike before, for example, you sign up for a service online, you use your email address. There were email spam before, but we didn't complain to Yahoo or Google.)

"Ngayon, hindi na email address 'yung primary. Kapag nag-subscribe ka ngayon, cellphone number. Hindi na masyadong uso ang website, lahat mobile apps na."

(But now we use our cellphone numbers to sign up for mobile apps.)

Bonifacio said most of the information were leaked following the Facebook data breach in 2019, as revealed by a cybercrime expert earlier this year.

• Data from 500 million Facebook accounts posted online: reports

The information, however, comes from different sources that are impossible to track due to the sheer number of services people use nowadays.

"Hindi lang sa Facebook nanggagaling. Ang dami na ho nating sina-sign up-an na mga online services . . . Ngayon ho ang hinaharvest ay cellphone numbers na," Bonifacio said.

(It doesn't only come from Facebook, because we sign up for a lot of online services . . . Now they harvest the cellphone numbers.)

Following reports from Globe users, Bonifacio said the company has blocked around 71 million messages, with some of the numbers coming from international telcos.

• Globe says over 5,000 numbers deactivated in beefed up efforts vs text spam

For Bonifacio, what's important is for people to be aware and more educated when it comes to spam and scam messages.

"Ang importante talaga is education and awareness. Wala itong ipinagkaiba sa email. Ang dami nating spam at scam na nakukuha. Report, block, report, block. Tapos eventually natuto din ang sistema, napipigilan natin," he explained.

(What's important is education and awareness. This is not different from spam and scam email messages. Just report and block, and eventually the system will block it on its own.)

" 'Wag magta-trust. Ang SMS hindi talaga trustworthy. Madali dayain. Madali talagang lokohin. 'Yung mga messages talaga, siguro 'wag masyadong nagbibigay ng information online, sa social media, kasi ginagamit po talaga ng mga scammer 'yan," he added.

(Don't trust messages easily. SMS is not trustworthy. It's easy to falsify information, and it's easy to send fake messages. Maybe it's better not to give too much information online, on social media, because these are being used by scammers.)

Bonifacio said users can report the numbers sending scam and spam messages to Globe by going to their website: www.globe.com.ph/stopspam.

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