"Stop Voice Phishing" SK Telecom Signs MOU with Financial Security Institute

Lee Ki-yoon, Head of Customer Value Innovation Office at SK Telecom (right), and Lim Jae-wook, Head of Cyber Response Headquarters at the Financial Security Institute, are taking a commemorative photo after signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on the 27th.

[Asia Economy Reporter Seulgina Cho] SK Telecom announced on the 28th that it has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Financial Security Institute to actively respond to voice phishing.

The two parties plan to jointly develop a blocking system to prevent voice phishing calls that impersonate financial and public institutions. Additionally, considering that voice phishing often occurs in connection with smishing messages, SK Telecom will share related information with the Financial Security Institute to strengthen the existing smishing blocking system.

Through this cooperation, SK Telecom expects not only rapid and effective blocking of voice phishing and smishing messages but also a reduction in customers' financial damages. According to financial authorities, among the approximately 70,000 reported voice phishing cases in 2018, about 55,000 cases, or 78%, were confirmed to have been caused by malicious applications.

The Financial Security Institute is a specialized organization providing comprehensive financial security services such as financial security monitoring, security breach response, vulnerability analysis and evaluation, technical research, and education. It developed its own detection techniques for voice phishing malicious apps and tracked and analyzed malicious apps for over a year, publishing the first global report in Korea.

At the signing ceremony held the day before, Ki-yoon Lee, Head of SK Telecom’s Customer Value Innovation Office, said, “We hope that this cooperation between SK Telecom and the Financial Security Institute will provide an opportunity to jointly solve the social challenge of voice phishing and protect customers’ financial safety.”

Jae-wook Lim, Head of the Cyber Response Division at the Financial Security Institute, stated, “Through cooperation with SK Telecom, we can utilize the technology and know-how accumulated by the Financial Security Institute to effectively prevent financial damages. We urge customers to refrain from clicking on links included in suspicious messages, avoid calls from strangers requesting financial information, and regularly update mobile antivirus programs as preventive measures.”

Meanwhile, SK Telecom provides features such as Safe Call and Safe Ringtone on its T Phone to block voice phishing, smishing, and spam messages, and operates the only voice spam blocking system among domestic mobile carriers.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.