In its testimony today, the American Bankers Association once again urged the Federal Trade Commission to adopt rules to prohibit impersonation of government, business, and their officials, and to prohibit entities from providing the “means and instruments” for another person to impersonate a government or business entity. . The proposed rule it is intended to expand the resources available to those who are victims of phishing fraud. The ABA joined other associations last year in support of the rule, and reiterated that support during a public hearing on the proposal.
“Bad actors regularly impersonate banks, credit unions, other financial service providers, health care companies, and other legitimate callers by illegally spoofing phone numbers belonging to these companies,” said Paul Benda, Senior Vice President of Operational Risk and Cybersecurity at ABA. “Additionally, criminals send text messages from numbers that appear to belong to a legitimate business, often including links to fake websites, or send a text message from the criminal’s own number, making it appear to be from a legitimate business. with the intent to defraud the recipient.
The ABA urged the commission to finalize the rule as soon as possible. It also asked the commission to hold phone companies liable for providing consumers with unauthenticated and falsified caller ID information on the consumer’s caller ID screen. “We understand that there are technical challenges to fully implementing the STIR/SHAKEN caller ID authentication protocol, but we strongly believe that unless the data can be authenticated at the highest level from the point of origin of the call to the consumer, it will not they should be allowed to show up. instead, any name on a consumer device and unknown caller data should be displayed,” Benda said.