AS THE Philippines’ leading digital solutions platform, Globe has been at the forefront of clamping down on scammers accessing personal data of mobile phone users in their ever-evolving modus operandi to dupe people out of their hard-earned money.

Globe reiterates that it has long put in place stringent measures to ensure the sanctity of customer data, bar attempts of third-party breach and guard against scammers. The company further stepped up its efforts at the height of the pandemic, when cybercriminals found new ways to dupe customers.

“At a time of aggressive cybercriminal activity amid growing digitalization, Globe asserts that the public, government and industry players, including telcos, are all victims of these illegal acts. It is, thus, a shared fight among all of us to beat our common enemy, which is cybercrime,” said Anton Bonifacio, Globe chief information security officer.

To date, Globe has spent $20 million or roughly P1.1 billion in capital expenditures to boost its capabilities in detecting and blocking scam and spam messages of international and domestic sources, including app-to-person and person-to-person SMS. Globe also maintains a 24/7 security operations center, with over 100 people working tirelessly to detect attacks, breaches and spam and text messages.

Through these efforts, the company was able to block 784 million scam and spam messages from January to July this year, deactivated 14,058 scam-linked SIMs and blacklisted 8,973 others. Globe also blocked 610 domains or URLs.

"We work closely with the National Telecommunications Commission and the Data Privacy Commission in pursuit of our common goal to crack down on cybercriminals and protect data privacy. GCash also coordinated with law enforcement agencies such as the Philippine National Police–Anti-Cybercrime Group and the National Bureau of Investigation Cybercrime Division on reported scamming incidents, which have led to arrest and prosecution," said Bonifacio.

To date, GCash was able to block 900,000 fraudulent accounts from January 2021 to March 2022 as well as helped arrest fraudsters.

Likewise, Globe partnered with banks and online retailers for threat intelligence and data sharing to boost multi-industry shared efforts against cybercriminals.

As the company does its part in combating online fraud, it also encourages all stakeholders—government, including regulatory bodies and law enforcement, business, and the public—to scale up vigilance and work better together against cybercriminals.

Globe again urges its customers to report spam and scam messages they receive on its Stop Spam web portal. Android phone users are also encouraged to set up spam filters on their devices. Customers can just follow these simple steps:

1. Download Google’s "Messages" app.
2. Set it as their default Android SMS messenger.
3. Go to Settings and enable Spam Protection.