In a recent development, the center has directed telecom operators to block all incoming international spoofed calls that display Indian mobile numbers, as per an official statement.
Government Asking Telecom Operators To Block all Incoming International Spoofed Calls
According to the Department of Telecom (DoT), it has been reported that fraudsters are making international spoofed calls displaying Indian mobile numbers to Indian citizens and committing cyber-crime and financial frauds.
In response to this, the government has come up with an advisory.
Further, the telecom department said that such calls appear to be originating within India but are being made by cybercriminals from abroad by manipulating the calling line identity (CLI).
They have been misused in recent cases of fake digital arrests, FedEx scams, drugs or narcotics in courier, impersonation as government and police officials, disconnections of mobile numbers by DoT or TRAI officials, etc.
The advisory suggested that “DoT and Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) have devised a system to identify and block such international spoofed calls from reaching any Indian telecom subscriber. Now directions have been issued to the TSPs for blocking such incoming international spoofed calls.”
What Is The Role Of A Telecom Service Provider?
It appears that the incoming international spoofed calls with Indian landline numbers are already being blocked by telecom service providers as they are following the directions issued by DoT.
Further, the advisory talks about, “Despite best efforts, there may still be some fraudsters who succeed through other means. For such calls, you can help everybody by reporting such suspected fraud communications at the Chakshu facility on Sanchar Saathi.”
Under this development, the DoT issued directives to the telecom operators to carry out immediate re-verification of 6.8 lakh mobile numbers last week.
Just within 60 days that are suspected to have been obtained using invalid, non-existent, or fake documents.
Moving ahead in this development, the telecom department is said to have flagged around 6.80 lakh mobile connections as potentially fraudulent after advanced AI-driven analysis.
