Over 5 million people sign up for service blocking scammers from sending spoofed texts using their number

(Herald DB)
(Herald DB)

Millions of Koreans are signing up for anti-smishing services provided by telecommunications companies, as crimes involving fake text messages, often sent by impersonating someone the victim knows, continue to rise.

A total of 5.14 million mobile phone users have subscribed to the service that prevents their phone number from being used in spoofed, computer-generated text messages as of August, according to the Korea Internet and Security Agency data revealed by Rep. Han Min-soo of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea.

The service works by registering a user’s number with KISA, which then blocks any text messages sent from a computer that falsely appear to originate from that number.

Most smishing cases involve text messages sent en masse via a PC, and impersonate the acquaintances of the victims by using their illegally obtained numbers. According to the KISA, there were 363,622 smishing cases in 2024 where the perpetrator had impersonated an acquaintance of the victim.

The number of people using this protective service has soared in recent months. While only around 100,000 had subscribed in 2023, the figure jumped to 420,000 by March this year, and has skyrocketed to over 5 million in past few months, after massive hacking incidents targeting Korea’s two largest telecom companies.

The hacking attack on SK Telecom resulted in the theft of information related to nearly 27 million people.


minsikyoon@heraldcorp.com