Globe Telecom has blocked 784 million scam and spam messages in the first seven months of the year amid rise of new variant of text scam. 

The Ayala-led company also  deactivated 14,058 scam-linked mobile numbers and blacklisted 8,973 more.

“We have coordinated with our industry partners to ensure that we can jointly protect the public from these types of scams. We’re also continuing to help drive awareness to ensure that our customers do not fall for these types of malicious campaigns even if seemingly personalized,” said Anton Bonifacio, Globe Chief Information Security Officer.

“At the end of the day, it’s a business for them, and as long as there are people who fall for their schemes, they’ll continue to bombard us with these nuisance messages despite all our prevention efforts,” he said.

Bonifacio also reminded the public to never open or click on links from unknown numbers nor engage these spammers by replying with personal information.

The National Telecommunications Commission earlier directed telecom companies to intensify their campaign against scam and spam text messages.

“We are complying with its latest order to issue a warning against a new breed of scam messages that bear users’ full names while making fake job offers or cash prizes,” Globe said.

“We continue to aggressively fight scam and spam messages. Our anti-spam and scam operations continue 24/7, and we have put in place necessary filters on the various interconnects and channels to block suspicious sources, including erring numbers, SIMs, and domains used in the latest modus,” it added. 

Globe stepped up its cybersecurity efforts in 2014 by building its capabilities to prevent attacks and threats to its infrastructure and protect its customers. It has a security operations center that works 24/7 to fend off and detect attacks or breaches very quickly and over 100 people dedicated to cybersecurity efforts.