Collaboration between the Australian Cyber Security Centre, Services Australia, Telstra and the telecommunications sector has led to the successful blocking of scammers sending text messages appearing to come from legitimate Government senders.
Minister for Communications, Urban Infrastructure, Cities and the Arts, Paul Fletcher said the blocking of scam texts followed the success of a pilot program that blocked more than 2,500 scam texts over the past 12 months.
“I am very pleased that so many scam texts appearing to come from Agencies including Centrelink, MyGov and the Australian Taxation Office are being blocked,” Mr Fletcher said.
“The success of this initiative is timely, given the use of MyGov has increased significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic,” he said.
Mr Fletcher said he had urged other organisations, including NBN Co, Australia Post and the banks to apply the same process to text messages they send.
Minister for Defence, Peter Dutton said the Australian Cyber Security Centre was continuing to work with the telecommunications sector for an industry-wide solution to increase protection against scam text messages generally.
Minister for Government Services, Linda Reynolds said the success of the pilot was an important milestone upon which the Government could now build.
“One year on from the pilot’s launch, 2,500 SMS scams that would have otherwise circulated in the community have been blocked,” Senator Reynolds said.
“Services Australia is continuing to develop and refine security measures to prevent against scams, which have the potential to cause such enormous harm, particularly to those not overly familiar with technology,” she said.
