Huge problem we see at my current company, Stytch (https://stytch.com/). Toll fraud/traffic pumping can result in huge costs, mid thousands to millions per year.
One thing that surprised me a lot to learn, and is covered in the article, is that the primary bad actor is the telecom provider! I had no idea that the telecoms were sharing revenue with hackers that found unprotected SMS channels and exploited them. A really wild thing.
We have a bunch of built in protection against SMS toll fraud for our OTP product as well as more in-depth fingerprinting tools if your app ever runs into this problem. When you get that first surprise bill from Twilio, give us a shout and we can help!
One thing that surprised me a lot to learn, and is covered in the article, is that the primary bad actor is the telecom provider! I had no idea that the telecoms were sharing revenue with hackers that found unprotected SMS channels and exploited them. A really wild thing.
We have a bunch of built in protection against SMS toll fraud for our OTP product as well as more in-depth fingerprinting tools if your app ever runs into this problem. When you get that first surprise bill from Twilio, give us a shout and we can help!