MORE ANTI-DECEPTION MEASURES SET

Acting Secretary for Commerce & Economic Development Bernard Chan said a registration scheme for SMS senders is being formulated and its pilot run for the banking industry is targeted to begin by the end of this year.

Mr Chan made the remarks in response to questions from legislator Leung Man-kwong in the Legislative Council today.

He explained that the Office of the Communications Authority, major mobile network operators, Police, the banking sector and its regulatory authority have established a working group for such purpose to assist the public in ascertaining the authenticity of SMS sender addresses, thereby combatting deception cases.

Mr Chan said the Government noticed that SMS messages with embedded phishing links were used to lure victims to access suspected fraudulent websites in many deception cases.

Major mobile network operators and Police have established a liaison protocol, based on the deception record and identified deception websites provided by Police, to block or suspend services of the phone numbers suspected to be involved in deception cases and to prevent users from accessing the suspicious fraudulent websites, he added.

Additionally, he pointed out that Police are exploring with the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) and the banking industry new measures to combat fraudulent activities, which include setting up a new joint platform with major banks to provide immediate assistance to the force in fraud cases.

Regarding the recent rise in unauthorised transactions which involve binding the victim's credit card to a new mobile payment application, the HKMA has provided new guidance to the industry, requiring banks to perform additional authentication apart from issuing an SMS one-time-password for binding credit cards to a new mobile payment application, in order to confirm that the customer has actually given such binding instructions.

The HKMA and the Hong Kong Association of Banks also established a taskforce earlier this year to proactively explore the enhancement of protection measures for payment cards. Details will be announced after finalisation.

---

PREVIOUSNEXT