The UK mobile industry, banking and finance sector and the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) have joined forces in a bid to block the spiralling use of scam text messages exploiting the Covid-19 crisis.

The ongoing industry initiative by the Mobile Ecosystem Forum (MEF), Mobile UK and UK Finance, supported by the NCSC, is undertaking a rearguard initiative to identify and block fraudulent SMS texts and safeguard messages from legitimate businesses and organisations.



MEF has developed a 'white list' which allows organisations to register and protect the sender IDs used when sending out legitimate text messages in an effort to prevent the widespread use of ID spoofing by criminals. The registry limits the ability of criminals to send messages using the same sender ID as a particular brand or government department, by checking first whether the sender is the genuine registered party. 50 bank and government brands are currently being protected through the initiative with 172 trusted sender IDs registered to date.



A blacklist has also been established to block messages from sender IDs that have been used to send scam texts, or from unauthorised variations that could be used to impersonate trusted brands and organisations in future. Over 400 sender IDs have been identified so far on the blacklist, including 70 related to Covid-19.



Katy Worobec, managing director of economic crime at UK Finance, says: “Banks are joining forces with other industries and law enforcement to protect the public from cruel coronavirus scams. We would urge consumers to be on their guard against criminals exploiting the Covid-19 outbreak to commit fraud.”