DoT blocked over 2 cr phone connections used for fraudulent activities: Official

Panaji: The Union Department of Telecommunication (DoT) has blocked over two crore phone connections used for fraudulent activities and and has been able to reduce spoof calls by 97 per cent with the introduction of initiatives like Sanchar Saathi, its secretary Dr Neeraj Mittal said on Wednesday. He was addressing the annual West Zone Conference on security related matters organised by the DoT in South Goa via video link. "We were able to cut the spoof calls by 97 per cent. We were able to see the impact of these efforts," he said, referring to the initiatives like Sanchar Saathi launched by the DoT.

Call spoofing is when callers disguise their caller ID information to hide who they really are. Scammers may use call spoofing to commit fraud. Mittal said that the DoT has developed a digital intelligence platform which helps the financial institutions to crowdsource the information and inform about the frauds that are happening in the financial sector. This helps generate information and proactively create a cyber secure environment, he said. "The role of telecom in providing basic services in every sector has grown exponentially. While users of telecom have grown, he misuse of telecom resources in the financial sector has grown accordingly," he said. The DoT has undertaken several steps to improve the cyber security of the country. "We are also increasing the telecom testing labs to ensure certified high quality telecom equipment. The use of artificial intelligence (AI) has led to disconnection of 78 lakh fraudulent connections and 71,000 points of sale," he added. The department has been collaborating with private players to improve the sectorial and application-specific security. He said that the DoT has launched a financial fraud risk indicator in collaboration with the partners which has been highly successful in detecting the mobile number used for fraudulent activity. The DoT is also going to upgrade the centralised monitoring system, according to him. "The internet monitoring system is something which we are working out to improve its capacity which is used extensively by law enforcement agencies," he added.