SMS Firewalls Will Reduce Fraud, Save Operators Billions Over Next 4 Years

The rate at which SMS-based scams and phishing attempts are occurring today may finally see a dip soon as SMS firewalls increase in adoption. That’s according to the latest findings by Juniper Research (News - Alert) which predicts the increased use of these tools to protect privacy could save operators billions of dollars.

SMS firewalls are designed to protect mobile networks from fraudulent activities and spam messages. They monitor and filter incoming SMS traffic, blocking unauthorized content and preventing potential threats. Having tools like this in place, means operator revenue loss to SMS grey route traffic will decline by 66 percent over the next 4 years according to Juniper.

This will translate into savings over $4.4 billion in lost messaging revenue between 2023 and 2027.

The research also shows that future firewall development mnust include Security-as-a-Service model and offer managed security tools instead of operator led technologies.

SMS fraud can include everything from SIM swapping where fraudsters control a victims phone number to premum rate service scams resulting in excessive charges on mobile bills to malware, smishing and even one-tine password interception where attackers bypass security measuring by intercepting SMS messages with OTPs.

In order to see truly effective fraud detection, businesses must invest in managed security tools and solutions from vendors who have implemented mutli-level tools for detection and prevention.

“Operators must have the most effective tools to identify and mitigate future methods of messaging fraud regardless of messaging channel. However, they must outsource fraud detection services to experienced third-party solutions providers that benefit from the wealth of data that they derive from the traffic over multiple operator core networks,” said report author Elisha Sudlow-Poole. 


Edited by Greg Tavarez