Police Take Steps Against Phishing
By Park Si-soo
Staff Reporter
International and mobile phone service providers will upgrade systems to have sender's numbers displayed on the receiving device, a move to counter voice phishing by disclosing where the call originated overseas.
Almost all voice phishing calls reported in Korea originated from China, according to the National Police Agency.
The National Police Agency (NPA) said Tuesday it had asked major international and mobile phone service providers ㅡ Hanaro Telecom, Korea Telecom, LG Dacom, SK Telecom and LG Telecom ㅡ to introduce the ``anti-voice phishing'' service as early as possible amid soaring fraudulent calls in recent years.
Once the service takes effect, most international calls aimed to steal receiver's private or financial information will be easily discerned since such calls, now disguised as a local call starting with local numbers such as 02 or 031, will begin with ``001'' or ``002,'' the numbers allocated exclusively to foreign-originated phone calls.
``The service would help prevent people from being conned by phishing scams,'' Lim In-soo, an NPA officer said.
The fraudulent calls are estimated to have incurred approximately 102 billion won ($100 million) in financial damage between June 2006 and August 2008.
Phishing scammers usually commit financial fraud via pone lines using stolen numbers and other personal data.