MTN cautions customers on sim swap and porting fraud
Technology has negated tasks like queuing at a bank or at a licensing department, but there are also inherent security threats associated with it.
MBOMBELA – As the holiday season approaches, fraud incidents will increase as fraudsters continue to find new, innovative ways to circumvent security features and scam unsuspecting consumers.
General manager for revenue assurance and fraud management at MTN South Africa, Elgivia Sibisi cautioned customers during fraud awareness month to closely monitor their online activities in order not to succumb and fall prey to online scammers.
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SIM swap and porting fraud, also known as identity fraud, has unfortunately become a reality to all network operators and customers around the world, as criminals constantly work to find new ways to beat fraud prevention systems.
“When a criminal get hold of sufficient personal information to pose as a credible agent for a network, they will solicit more details from the customer in order to commit fraud,” says Elgiva.
A recent example was in 2018, when MTN proactively alerted its customers to beware of a new scam that surfaced. Criminals claiming to be MTN call centre agents would request a customer’s security details under false pretenses. They would allege that they are attempting to block the processing of a SIM swap request being made on the subscriber’s number.
MTN reiterated that it will not contact customers from its call centre to stop the processing of a SIM swap request. All of MTN’s customers are urged not to respond to unsolicited calls for their security details from an unknown number.
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Additional security precautions have been rolled out, like in-store biometrics, as an additional layer of security to further halt criminal activities. “OTP (One Time Pin) security accesses to systems were also introduced, whereby users who are affected have a clear tracking and audit log, which is also monitored by us,” Elgiva said.
Elgiva stated that SIM swap requests will only be processed between 07:00 to 20:00, due to their focus on further tightening security measures. Porting is another concern, where criminals use a person’s information to switch his or her phone number to a new service provider. The thieves can then use the phone to intercept messages such as OTP’s.
“MTN has introduced a solution called Subscriber Identity for Third Parties (SIFT), which gives banks real-time alerts on changes in SIM card numbers. This feature gives customers a 48-hour window period to stop any unauthorized transactions,” says Elgiva.
The South African Police Services (SAPS) Statistics reflects 668 incidences of commercial crimes committed in Mbombela during the 2018/2019 financial year, which includes all types of fraud, forgery, identity theft and the so-called white collar crimes.
