PRESS RELEASE: CTU will help significantly reduce spoofing. Many fraudulent calls will no longer be connected

Prague, 22 February 2024 - CTU has launched a public consultation on the draft amendment to the General Authorisation No. VO-S/2/07.2005-10. The addition of new conditions will help to reduce spoofing and its effects in two different ways. The first is the blocking of calls that come from abroad, but the caller is identified by a number that should not come from abroad. The second is the marking of the calling subscriber with the actual telephone number associated with that subscriber and service in the call signalling message.

Spoofing is a practice of misusing a phone number (typically from an institution such as a bank) in some way (by manipulating a CLI parameter). The call towards the potential defrauded party is then pretended to be from the number of that bank. The purpose is very often to induce the recipient of the call to make financial transactions, etc. It should be added that substitution of number in the CLI parameter, i.e. spoofing as such, is not always of a fraudulent nature.

"Spoofing is a major problem leading to high financial damage to the defrauded. That is why the Czech Telecommunication Office, after discussions with the sector, has come up with a solution through the above-described amendment to the general authorisation," said Marek Ebert, Chairman of the CTU Council.

Tereza Meravá
Spokesperson
Czech Telecommunication Office