In response to increasingly sophisticated financial scams like voice phishing and smishing, South Korea's three major mobile carriers have launched an all-out war, bringing advanced AI-based technologies to the forefront. Beyond simple spam blocking, they are determined to prevent the surging damage from telecommunication financial scams by building intelligent defense systems that identify actual perpetrators' voices and detect malicious app infections in real-time.

LG Uplus held a press conference on the 29th at its headquarters in Yongsan, Seoul, to unveil its AI-based voice phishing and smishing detection system. The company particularly highlighted the seriousness of the issue by demonstrating actual damage cases where malicious apps completely took over phones, activating cameras in real-time and making calls to victims impersonating 112 police officers. LG Uplus has established an integrated system that detects voice phishing through its AI-based call agent "Exio" and warns customers. If a malicious app installation is confirmed, it immediately sends an AlimTalk notification, linking users to professional security counselors or police for assistance.

LG Uplus has been strengthening its security system since July 2023, with the establishment of a Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) direct information security center focusing on three pillars: security governance, security prevention, and security response. Last year, the company invested approximately 82.8 billion won in information protection and plans to increase this by more than 30% this year. Over the next five years, it plans to invest about 700 billion won to build a Zero Trust security model specifically tailored for LG Uplus by 2027.

On the same day, KT announced that it would commercialize its real-time "AI Voice Phishing Detection Service 2.0," which integrates speaker recognition and deep voice (AI-modulated voice) detection capabilities for the first time in South Korea, starting on the 30th. This service enhances existing context-based detection technology by precisely analyzing voiceprint information based on actual voice phishing perpetrators' reported voice data, dubbed "that guy's voice," provided by the National Forensic Service, to detect criminal activity. This significantly improves detection accuracy compared to previous methods that relied solely on financial keywords or sentence structures. With the launch of version 2.0, KT aims to prevent over 200 billion won in annual damages and achieve a detection accuracy of over 95%.

SK Telecom is also actively developing AI-based voice phishing detection and blocking technologies. It already operates services that use its proprietary AI technology to block suspected spam and voice phishing numbers and provide relevant information to customers. The company is also strengthening its AI-based call analysis system to detect and warn against suspicious voice phishing calls in real-time. These AI-based security enhancement efforts by the three telecommunication companies are expected to effectively respond to increasingly sophisticated voice phishing crimes and significantly contribute to protecting the public's valuable assets.

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