Thread by @BiIndia

India’s #Blockchain tech to make SMS more secure is leaving users locked out of their accounts — and potentially more at risk

businessinsider.in/tech/news/indi…

By @pabsgill

@pabsgill The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has suspended its #blockchaintechnology aimed at filtering out spam messages for the next seven days.

#Blockchain

@pabsgill One-time-passwords (OTPs) aren’t just for financial transactions. They are central for logging into email accounts, authenticating new memberships, or just signing into #Amazon on a new device.

#blockchaintechnology #Blockchain

@pabsgill This comes after users across the country saw long delays in receiving their one-time-passwords (OTPs) for online transactions.

#blockchaintechnology #Blockchain

@pabsgill “We are concerned about any customer inconvenience cases and have ordered a seven-day temporary suspension of the SMS scrubbing that was activated on Monday,” a senior TRAI official told the Economic Times.

#blockchaintechnology #Blockchain

@pabsgill The technical glitch was not just a pain for private players — like Axis Bank, Paytm, Goibibo and others — but also for government entities like the IRCTC, the State Bank of India and Aadhar Authentication, who saw their messages getting blocked out.

#Blockchain

@pabsgill Why aren’t OTPs coming through?

This whole drama is unfolding because the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) started to implement the second phase of the SMS regulations on March 8.

#blockchaintechnology #Blockchain

@pabsgill The transition has been less than smooth to say the least, with companies may not have registered in time getting locked out.

#blockchaintechnology #Blockchain

@pabsgill The government’s new process is designed to curb spam and fraud messages. Using a #Blockchain- solution, telecom operators can now verify commercial messages and their source using a template for such communication.

#blockchaintechnology

@pabsgill Telecom operators are defending the digital ledger system and pointing the finger at companies who failed to register in time. According to them, the onus lies on telemarketers and individual businesses to comply with the standards.

#blockchaintechnology #Blockchain

@pabsgill Safer or temporarily more at risk than usual?

Content scrubbing is a good move to keep spam at bay. But what’s not good is when a pesky filter keeps useful messages from coming through as well. In fact, such a move could put users more at risk.

#blockchaintechnology #Blockchain

@pabsgill “Close to 50% traffic is getting dropped because of content scrubbing. Officials from India’s top banks including #HDFC and #SBI are extremely furious and dialling #TRAI to address the mess at the earliest,” a top executive at a leading telemarketing firm told The Economic Times.

@pabsgill Without messages coming through from your bank, not only do your own transactions hit a wall but there’s no alert if someone else is trying to make a transaction from your account. This increases the chances of #cyberfraud.

#blockchaintechnology #Blockchain