Ayala-led Globe Telecom Inc. has prevented over 138 million spam and scam messages from reaching its customers in almost the first six months of the year.
Globe said these millions of messages blocked from January to June 15 this year was a result of its relentless efforts to help keep the public safe from malicious and fraudulent activities online.
The total figure includes app-to-person and person-to-person messages of both local and international origin.
Globe’s anti-spam blocking peaked in May, with 74.48 million total unwanted messages filtered out.
Also deactivated were 12,877 mobile numbers during the period due to spamming out of customer reports via Globe’s Stop Spam web portal.
Globe chief information security officer Anton Bonifacio said while a lot of attacks have happened over the past 10 years, the COVID-19 pandemic has served as a force multiplier.
“Many Filipinos were quick to adopt all things digital. Unfortunately, with the increase in adoption, the cybersecurity landscape has become bleaker,” Bonifacio said.
“This is why we have intensified even more our efforts to block spam messages through a stringent filtering system. We are also glad that the public has been vigilant, making use of our reporting portal to flag these unwanted messages,” he added.
Globe invests in tools to combat threats and proactively detect suspicious content on the Internet.
Reporting tools and processes were also enabled for employees, customers, and partners to immediately capture customer concerns about fraud and scams.
“So we have been investing millions of dollars on systems and processes to combat security threats even without any promise of a return on investment. After all, the biggest ROI are the peace of mind and safety of our customers,” Bonifacio said.
