On 19 November the second stage of the anti-spoofing filter predicted from Agcom which provides the blocking of mobile calls from abroad with an Italian numberexcluding those of customers actually roaming. A few days after the introduction of the filter we witness a drop in calls from abroad by individuals pretending to be Italian.
This was announced by Agcom. This second phase follows the first, started on 19 August, with which all calls from abroad with an Italian landline number were blocked. Therefore, starting from November 19th, all the calls with Italian numbers coming from abroad (usually illicit, as Italian numbers are assigned only in Italy), excluding those coming from the mobile phone of customers actually roaming in other countries. The first data on the number of blocked callscurrently provided by Tim, Vodafone-Fastweb, WindTre, Iliadgive evidence of the wide diffusion of this illegal practiceas already foreseen by theAuthority in the aforementioned resolution.
The data of the various managers
A first mobile network operator – continues Agcom – announced that it was blocked from 19 November to 21 November 8.1 million spoofed calls from mobile networkscorresponding to an average of 2.7 million calls blocked per day (another 2.6 million calls were blocked between Saturday, November 22, and Sunday, November 23). A second mobile network operator blocked from November 19 to November 23 8.3 million spoofed mobile calls out of a total of 17 million received (around 50% of mobile calls were spoofed), for an average of 1.7 million calls per day.
A third mobile operator, on November 21st alone, out of approximately 3.15 million mobile calls, requested the blocking of 2.9 million calls (equal to approximately 90% of the calls received). Another operator, in the period 20 November – 23 November, blocked approximately 650,000 calls out of a total of approximately 940,000 mobile calls (approximately 70% of mobile calls were blocked) with an average of 162,000 blocks per day. In total, i four main managers they blocked, in the period 19-21 November, an approximate average of 7.46 million calls per day. This is an initial figure which, although partial, is already approximately 6 times higher than the total number of calls blocked from landlines from abroad in the initial phase of application of the filter (approximately 1.3 million per day).
Next steps and attention to international numbers
L’Authority will publish an overall survey of the number of preventative blocks carried out for calls from mobile numbersfollowing a longer period of block activation. Among the different operators, values of the percentage of are observed illicit calls from blocked mobile numbers even 50%, 70%, up to 90%. These percentages refer to the rate of illegal callswhich are all blocked, while the remaining portion corresponds to legitimate calls. These data confirm that a good part of spoofing comes from abroadAgcom further underlines according to which “the phenomenon is also moving to calls from abroad with international numberswhich cannot be blocked, based on the current regulatory framework. It is necessary, in this regard, to inform i citizens to pay close attention to such calls when they are offered contracts and services of various kinds. You may also see an increase in spoofing originated in Italy. On this aspect, theAuthorityin collaboration with the other institutions involved, will carry out a careful vigilance by imposing the sanctions of the case, on the basis of a now clear and consolidated regulatory framework. In this case, in fact, it is easy to trace the subject who originated, in Italy, the illegal calls“, conclude l’Authority.