Singapore’s police have directed Apple to act against phishing and scam iMessage texts that impersonate the government. Here are the details.
iMessage texts ‘not easily distinguishable’ from SMS, per local police
In Singapore, government and other local agencies must register with a national SMS registry so that only verified senders can use the “gov.sg” label.
However, that system doesn’t yet extend to iMessage or Google Messages. This is why, as reported by Reuters, Singapore wants Apple and Google to act to minimize the chances of their platforms becoming easy vectors for government-agency spoofing.
From the report:
“The order under the nation’s Online Criminal Harms Act came after the police observed scams on Apple’s iMessage and Google Messages purporting to be from companies such as the local postal service SingPost.”
According to local police, “members of the public may assume that messages they receive from accounts claiming to be from ‘gov.sg’ on iMessage or Google Messages are legitimate,” since they “appear alongside and are not easily distinguishable from SMSes.”
Reuters reports that both Google and Apple have already committed to complying with the order, urging users to keep their devices updated.
And while Apple couldn’t be reached for comment, Google told Reuters that “it is collaborating with the government to implement these preemptive measures, and that the move builds on the company’s existing efforts to combat scams, such as proactive spam filtering.”
It is worth noting that while Apple didn’t reply to Reuters’ request for comment, the company does have a set of safeguards in place to curb spam and phishing attempts, including means to screen, filter, report, and block unwanted or otherwise suspicious text messages from unknown senders.
You can learn more about these controls here.
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