MANILA, PHILIPPINES — TrustTech company Gogolook, founded in Taiwan, and the Global Anti-Scam Alliance (GASA), a renowned international non-profit organization based in the Netherlands, have furthered the display of their joint forces in their mission to combat scams on a global scale. Their recent initiatives have brought about substantial progress in the fight against scams, particularly in the Philippines.
Gogolook, known for its flagship service Whoscall, made its debut in the Philippines last August 22. The entry of Whoscall into the market has been met with overwhelming positivity, thanks to its strategic marketing campaigns and partnerships with key stakeholders, both in the private and public sectors. Notably, Gogolook has been working closely with the Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center (CICC) in the Philippines to bolster cybersecurity efforts in the country and has garnered its full support. GASA, on the other hand, has been a proactive non-profit organization that collaborates with various stakeholders, including technology companies, government agencies, and non-profit organizations, to facilitate knowledge sharing, organize research, and implement effective strategies against scams and cyber fraud.
Recently, GASA and the Women in Security Alliance Philippines (WiSAP) launched their partnership to jointly promote initiatives that help identify and control scams and fraud, especially because of the evolving modus operandi and tactics of scammers that lead to the growth and proliferation of these scams and fraud incidents similar to cyber attacks wherein TTPs become more sophisticated through the weaponization of AI, as emphasized by WiSAP Chair, Mel Migrino. To help control crimes like these, Managing Director of GASA, Jorij Abraham, has introduced GoScamCheck.ph, a tool that both end-users and enterprises can use in detecting suspicious or malicious domains and subdomains via its risk profiling capabilities. Hand-in-hand with the adoption of the Gogolook-developed Whoscall application as a consumer-based anti-scam protection via caller identification and URL scanning features, the state of digital protection was highlighted in the country.
The webinar featured distinguished speakers in the panel that talked about scam issues and prevention, including Gogolook’s Chief Operations Officer, Manwoo Joo; Maricris Salud, Deputy Director for Cybersecurity Supervision and Oversight at the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas; Cpt. Mariel Ibanez of the Cyber Battalion of the Philippine Army; Albert Tinio, Co-chief Executive Officer of GoTyme Bank; Sean Lyons, Chief Online Safety Officer of Netsafe New Zealand; and Alma Alvarez, Director for Global Threat Response, Threat Hunting, Training, and Education.
The insightful discussions shed light on the escalating problem of scammers and fraudsters and explored various strategies for combating them, particularly in the Philippines. These efforts align closely with GASA’s recent scam report for the Philippines, which revealed that 29% of Filipinos fell victim to scams in the past year alone. The study, based on a survey of 1,432 individuals, also emphasized that most scams occur via text/SMS, raising concerns about the increasing sophistication of scammers.
Given the enhanced methods of these unscrupulous and preying individuals, the GASA and Gogolook collaboration is a welcome step towards the direction of staying ahead of the evolving modus operandi of scammers. The two organizations have already collaborated further to integrate the features of GoScamCheck.ph with Whoscall to enable users to scan URLs from messages against the database of GoScamCheck.ph and GASA.
The coordination between the two also enables users to not only safeguard themselves against scams via texts, calls, and websites for free but also actively contribute by reporting new or unreported scam numbers and malicious URLs through the Whoscall app and the GoScamCheck.ph portal, which is important given that the Philippine GASA report revealed that 66% of survey participants were confident in identifying scams and were aware of the increasing sophistication of scammers. This proves that while user awareness is present against scams, there is a need for a call to action as well as ease of reporting these attempted crimes.
This collaboration between Gogolook and GASA represents the strength of a fruitful partnership and the coming together of various organizations to catch and stop scams, furthering the achievement of Gogolook’s vision of a #ScamFreePilipinas.
There are more exciting initiatives in the pipeline, including the Asian Anti-Scam Summit to be held by Gogolook and GASA and is scheduled for November 20 to 21, in Taipei, Taiwan. The summit will gather key leaders and representatives from not just the Philippines and Asia, but around the world to discuss the evolving tactics of scams and fraud globally and how the private and public sectors can stay ahead of them. The agenda will also feature prominent voices from the Philippines, underlining the international importance of this endeavor.
