TRAI's New Rule to Block Unapproved Links in SMS: Report

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, popularly known as TRAI, is implementing a new regulation from October 1 in order to tackle the spurt in fake activities being conducted through SMS. According to this rule, the telecom operators will be under obligation to filter out all the URLs in the text messages that are not screened by the regulatory authority. The action is set to protect users from phishing scams, cyber fraud, and other crimes through fake links provided in text messages.

How the Rule Works

According to TRAI, every company or organization that sends out multiple text messages containing links, OTT, links, and APKs must submit those links to the telecom operators. The lawful URLs will be included in the whitelist, whereas any URL that will try to connect from a telecom network without preliminary registration or in case of the network’s suspicion will be denied by the telecom networks. This means that consumers only receive legitimate messages and are protected from these malicious links.

Trai had earlier told the telecom operators to cease forwarding unwhitelisted messages from September 1 but later provided the operators with an October 1 deadline due to the realization that time was still required to build the infrastructure.

Although 3000 business entities have tried to implement the measures laid out in these directives by whitelisting URLs given in the messages and approving more than 70,000 links, industry experts state that this only makes up a small proportion of the total URLs requiring whitelisting and exposes a serious lack of compliance.

What is the Issue:

India’s Telecom Regulatory Authority (TRAI) is worried that spammers are using URLs and APKs to send messages with links for seemingly harmless websites that contain viruses designed to target and penetrate the operating systems of mobile devices.

Consumers have been victims of the scheme, participating in the link and pretending to be from their banks or other service providers, which results in security compromise. Even though both TRAI and the Department of Telecom have been trying to ban annoying calls and messages, the outcomes achieved have been wanting, and the vice continues.