Hi there. It’s Brady.
Nobody, except for a clinic, has my local phone number in Singapore. I bring this up because in the past 24 hours, I have received four calls from numbers with Singapore’s country code, each playing a recording that says I’m being contacted by the Ministry of Health and… well, I don’t know what comes next because I hung up all four times.
I’ve asked around and this has been the case for quite a few people. The only thing in common is that we have booked appointments at medical facilities. There’s something broken in the process, and someone—spammers—are getting hold of the contact information of individuals who have made medical appointments, specifically for PCR tests ahead of flights out of the city-state. Maybe someone should look into this?
Anyway, that experience links up with an article that Stephanie wrote about SMS spam in the Philippines. She spoke to a representative of a cybersecurity firm and reached out to a company that has been blasting out messages, functioning as the last link in this pipeline of mass outreach. You can read her explainer here.
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