Police to release voice phishing app next year

The police are committed to developing technologies to crack down on increasingly intelligent phone financial fraud (voice phishing) crimes. It is also developing a relayed application that immediately dispatches nearby police when signs of a voice phishing threat are detected, and an investigation mechanism that analyzes call details to hunt down criminal organizations.

According to the National Police Agency on Friday, the Police Science Institute under the Korean National Police University plans to introduce the police app "Police Conan" next year, following the "Citizen Conan," a malicious application detection app released in September for public dissemination. Citizen Conan app has an "antivirus" feature that detects and deletes malicious apps and files that voice phishing criminals lure ordinary people to install, as well as displays a warning message when local voice phishing reports surge.

Once Police Conan is developed, a "report" feature will be added to Citizen Conan. When citizens report a voice phishing crime scene or suspected case through Citizen Conan, the location will be immediately notified via Police Conan. The app will also contain accurate location information of places where voice phishing frequently occurs, such as ATMs and public phone booths. This ensures police quickly arrive at the scene to stop the crime and arrest the suspect.

In addition, a feature will be added to quickly share information with the police when a malicious app is installed on the phone or its operation is detected. The app concerned is expected to be distributed to front-line police officers after a pilot period as early as next year.

The police are also developing a program to trace ring leaders' information by analyzing contact information and call records of voice phishing criminals and crime operations. When the development is completed, calls and text messages received and sent between voice phishing ring members and call center agents secured by the police through seizure and search will be automatically analyzed and classified according to call frequency and duration, etc., allowing organized crime leadership to be traced.

“Even if you investigate the voice phishing suspect’s call history, etc., it is often successful only to track down one or two more gang members who are one or two lines above or frequently in contact,” a police official said. “The new program aims to uncover links between criminal masterminds and large crime syndicates.” This program will go into pilot use next year as well.

The National Police Agency is also considering benchmarking the U.K.'s "National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB)" model, which comprehensively manages and analyzes financial and cyber fraud reports only. The NFIB has the authority to preemptively block the use of account numbers and phone numbers suspected of being used in crimes.


pep@donga.com