The Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) announced Thursday it will begin operating an "Illegal Spam Number Blocking System" in partnership with the Korea Telecom Operators Association (KTOA) to reduce user inconvenience and fraud damages by preemptively blocking illegal spam sender numbers.
The system is a technology that enables Korea's three mobile carriers and KTOA to detect in real-time "invalid numbers" that are not registered as legitimate text message relay companies or resellers authorized to send bulk messages, and blocks these numbers from sending spam texts to subscribers.
The system was established as a follow-up measure to the "Comprehensive Anti-Illegal Spam Plan" announced by MSIT last month. The ministry has developed pre-blocking standards for international bulk text messages that require overseas text service providers to comply with the same legal and technical obligations as domestic operators. It has also introduced Google's system to prevent malicious code that was not blocked at the sending stage from being installed on mobile phones.
"With real-time validity verification of bulk message sender numbers now possible, we expect to block a significant portion of illegal spam," said Choi Woo-hyuk, Director General of Network Policy at MSIT. "We will continue our policy efforts to prevent illegal spam and related phishing crimes."