Tele2 Sweden reported a sharp increase in SMS fraud attempts on customers during October, taking the total number of scam messages blocked by the operator to more than 18 million so far in 2024.

In October, the number of messages blocked by the operator was up 40 per cent compared with September, with an anticipation this would increase again around retail event Black Friday and in the run-up to Christmas, given historic data.

A current theme identified was for scams claiming the recipient had made purchases at electronics retailers.

In a statement, Tele2 head of security Jonas Lindstrom noted: “Organised crime sees this type of fraud as relatively risk free and we see an increase in hoax text messages every year. We have also seen that, with the help of AI, people become more efficient and sophisticated in their fraud”.

AI has been cited by Europol as helping criminals streamline fraud, Tele2 highlighted, causing issues for firewalls and making scams appear more convincing.  

Lindstrom added the operator was using “information and technical solutions” in its battle to protect users. Among these initiatives is its use of AI to automatically identify patterns and threats, and block suspicious activity.