Mobile phones are deeply embedded in our digital society and serve a vital role—especially as COVID-19 continues. In fact, over 95 percent of Americans own a cellphone, and our always-on culture isn’t lost on cybercriminals who often use text messages to communicate directly with victims. Over the last year we’ve seen well over a 100% rise in SMS/text-based “SMISHING” attacks as Proofpoint protects operators from text message billing fraud while automatically detecting and mitigating all categories of mobile messaging abuse and threats across service provider networks.
Just recently Juniper Research, a research and analytical services firm, recognized Proofpoint’s ongoing dedication to keeping mobile users safe and also protecting operator revenue from fraudulent activities. We were named one of the top five providers within the firm’s SMS Firewall Vendor Positioning Index following an analysis of 20 leading SMS firewall providers.
According to Juniper Research, which examined criteria including the level of technology innovation and digital investment, “the leading vendors all offer advanced analytics within their firewall offerings; using natural language processing and machine learning to combat fraudulent activity.”
The firm’s new research, A2P Messaging: SMS, RCS & OTT Business Messaging 2020-2025, found that operators are implementing technology to reduce fraudulent traffic by 75% from 2020 to 2025. Operators will experience significant benefits as traffic delivered over legitimate channels increases, with operator revenue lost to illegitimate channels drastically reducing from $5.8 billion in 2020 to $1.2 billion in 2025. In the U.S., fraud volumes are predicted to decrease by 99%. And we are proud to partner with major operators globally to make this happen.
There continues to be an explosion in the use of text messaging by businesses to communicate with their customers. Text messaging is a highly effective mechanism to reach customers - with over 99% of text messages read and over 90% read within three minutes. These messages are mainly sent via A2P (application to person). A2P messages are charged at a higher price point from person-to-person messages. However, some legitimate A2P Mobile-Terminated SMS traffic arrives on a mobile operator's network via a non-A2P route and is not properly billed. This is referred to as “grey traffic” and we assist operators in categorizing this traffic and enable them to reclaim lost revenue.
Our security platform for mobile messaging is a high-performance, carrier-grade security and anti-fraud platform that delivers a powerful, feature-rich foundation with granular controls for fine tuning of the service. We enable service providers to apply the most powerful security available across messaging streams: SMS, MMS, RCS, and email. Our carrier-class software also leverages artificial intelligence, content and traffic categorization, patented protocol and content-based filtering algorithms to provide network-level protection against rapidly morphing spam, malware, and phishing attacks. Our grey traffic solution includes traffic categorization and routing as well as a fraud management console. We have the world’s largest global threat network and protect over 4.5 billion subscribers.
For more information on our security platform for mobile messaging, please visit: https://www.cloudmark.com/en/products/mobile-messaging-security/cloudmark-platform-for-mobile.