Voice security firm Hiya found that there were 20 billion spam calls worldwide during the first half of the year. The top four scams were related to Medicare, insurance, health, and tax-related spam calls. Tax-related scams fell off after the April 15 filing deadline.
The Global Call Threat Report found that the spam call flag rate — what the firm refers to as unknown calls from outside the receiver’s address book — were reported in 25 of the 42 countries in the report. In some countries, the flag rate was above 50%.
The firm said that Americans received an average of 14 spam calls per month during the January to June period. The states with the top flag rates were Oklahoma, Indiana, and Ohio. Alaska, New York, and North Dakota had the fewest.
There also was an increase in the use of artificial intelligence deep fakes. Notably, voters in New Hampshire received deep fake robo calls impersonating President Biden.
“Phone fraud, spam and the emerging use of AI-driven deepfake voice scams are escalating threats to the voice channel, affecting every phone user across every major market,” said Hiya President Kush Parikh. “The voice channel deserves the same level of vigilance that enterprises apply to cybersecurity. In fact, voice security must be swiftly integrated into cybersecurity strategies, as it represents a significant vulnerability in protecting enterprises.”
Another firm — YouMail, which provides app-based spam call protection services for mobile phones — reported good and bad news on robocalls last month. It found the 4.3 billion robocalls reported was a 4.3% decrease compared to July 2023. However, it was a 4.1% increase compared to June.
Spam calls, of course, are an ongoing problem for service providers and their ecosystem. Earlier this month, John Haraburda, the Director Product Management: Identity and Protection at Transaction Network Services (TNS), told Telecompetitor that smaller carriers face special challenges in implementing the right systems to confront the problem.