Airtel Kenya, has launched a Spam Alert Service to all its subscribers at no cost to offer real-time alerts for suspected spam SMS messages.
The Spam Alert Service, announced in March, requires no additional application downloads and is automatically activated for all Airtel customers both with smartphones and feature phones.
According to Airtel Kenya Managing Director, Ashish Malhotra: “The AI spam alert service is the first of its kind in the Kenyan market and it fosters our dedication towards groundbreaking solutions aimed at better customer experience. With the new AI-powered spam alert, we are enabling our customers to be more vigilant to fraud attempts on their phones and to have a better experience of our services.”
Spam in this context refers to unsolicited SMS messages to phones, often from fraudsters and scammers. The messages are usually socially engineered and potentially lead to harvesting of data, spreading malware and swindling of money from unsuspecting mobile users. Furthermore, the spam messages are also characterised of unsolicited promotional marketing messages which are oftentimes annoying.
With Kenya’s mobile phone penetration on the increase, spam messages have become a widespread issue, targeting an expanding demography of unsuspecting individuals. Hundreds of thousands of Kenyans often receive unsolicited nagging promotional SMS or calls. Further, they also receive duping messages and calls from con artists who have mastered the art of stealing from unsuspecting individuals. In these communications, users are asked to click on links and provide personal information which could end up leading to them being defrauded. Currently, customers have to rely on third party software to flag spam messages.
Without reading specific SMS messages, the AI analyses in real time over 250 parameters, including the sender’s usage patterns such as SMS frequency and geographical spread of targets. The Airtel AI Spam Alert Service filters all SMS through a proprietary dual-layer protection: one layer at the network level and the other at the IT systems level, processing over 18 million messages, each in 2 milliseconds.
Additionally, the software alerts customers of malicious weblinks received via SMS and maintains a centralized database of blacklisted URLs to warn users against accidentally clicking on suspicious links.
To report fraud, Airtel customers should dial the USSD code *100# and select option 3, Report Fraud.