The Top International Spam-Sending Country is Tonga... Rampant in Europe Amid Social Turmoil

Top 10 Spam Origin Countries for SK Telink 00700

[Asia Economy Reporter Minyoung Cha] Last year, as international call spam scams became more sophisticated, the South Pacific island nation of Tonga earned the dishonor of being the number one source country for international spam calls. Taking advantage of the chaotic international situation caused by COVID-19, countries in Europe and Africa such as Austria, Belgium, and South Africa have also seen a surge in such activity.

According to SK Telecom’s international call service ‘00700’ on the 24th, the top country for international call spam in 2021 was Tonga (13% of total, country code 676), a South Pacific island nation. Following Tonga were Myanmar (10%, country code 95) in second place, Fiji (8%, country code 679) in third, Samoa (7%, country code 685) in fourth, and Austria (5%, country code 43) in fifth.

International spam refers to illegal acts that induce abnormal international communication or connections from overseas to Korea. Traditionally, these have mainly occurred in South Pacific island nations with poor international communication infrastructure, but last year, European and African countries emerged as new sources of international spam. Representative countries include Myanmar, Austria, Belgium, Russia, Gambia, and South Africa.

This shift is interpreted as a result of international relay operators actively blocking spam calls, causing criminals to turn their attention to countries with unstable domestic situations or those experiencing increased social unrest due to the rapid spread of the Omicron variant.

The patterns of international spam are also evolving. Instead of the previous method of indiscriminately sending spam calls to many recipients from a single originating number, criminals now use multiple numbers to confuse spam call blocking and delay response times, making countermeasures more difficult.

00700 continuously updates its illegal spam call monitoring and blocking criteria and upgrades the performance of its spam response equipment. It operates hotlines with overseas operators to immediately block spam traffic in real time and requests measures to prevent recurrence. In 2021, it blocked 6.56 million international spam calls, a 1.7-fold increase from 3.86 million the previous year. The number of victims also decreased by more than 40% compared to the previous year.

Since the Lunar New Year holiday next week is a period when international call usage surges, special caution is required. 00700 plans to designate countries with high international spam occurrence as special monitoring countries, maintaining 24-hour surveillance and blocking efforts while urging customers to be cautious.

First, if you receive a missed call from unfamiliar numbers starting with ‘676’, ‘95’, ‘679’, ‘685’, or ‘881’, it is highly likely to be a ‘one-ring spam’ call. Before calling back, it is advisable to check the country code of the phone number through a search. If you accidentally call back, immediately press the call end button and confirm that the call has been disconnected. Also, do not click on internet addresses (URLs) in international-originated text messages if the source is unknown, and strengthen your smartphone’s security settings to prevent unknown apps from being installed without permission. Using your smartphone’s spam blocking features to register spam numbers and phrases or installing government and related agencies’ spam blocking and reporting apps can enhance security.

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