Protect your customers from fraud with RCS Sender Verification

Cybercrime and customer trust

With every technological advancement, there will be those with ill intent. One of the more popular formats of cybercrime is criminals impersonating businesses, abusing the trust of your customers and extracting their sensitive information, personal details and account information for financial gain. This includes:

• Spoofing: Criminals masquerade as a trusted business with mail formats, business profiles and employee information.

• Phishing: Criminals encourage unsuspecting victims to click on links to malicious websites via spoofed emails.

• Smishing: The mobile-first little brother of phishing where criminals trick victims into clicking on links to malicious websites via SMS.

In 2022, around 30% of consumers and 85% of companies worldwide encountered phishing scams and three in four organisations reported experiencing smishing attacks. Furthermore, in the fourth quarter of 2022, there were over 1.35 million unique phishing sites worldwide (Statista).

The danger of cybercrime is becoming common knowledge for consumers. Everybody has been told at least once to never click suspicious links or open messages from unknown senders. This however creates a distrust towards all messages they receive - even your marketing content.

Hello,

We have a great offer for you! 10% discount on our summer collection if you follow this link: www.website.com

Would you consider the above text message safe? When customers have no way of knowing which messages are to be trusted and which ones aren't, they'll opt for a general distrust towards all messages received. This means that customer communication relies on trust. RCS messaging can instil this trust and confidence with verified sender profiles.

About RCS and Sender Verification

RCS, short for Rich Communications Services, is an increasingly popular channel that utilises an upgraded messaging protocol that enhances traditional SMS by enabling network operators and phone carriers to incorporate richer content. Thus making the messaging experience more similar to using a messaging app rather than native SMS messaging.

In addition to the rich media capabilities, RCS also has verified sender profiles. This sender verification is embedded in the RCS Business Messaging protocol and it verifies the legitimacy of your business profile after a thorough verification process. Verified RCS Business profiles display:

• Company logo

• Sender view with a checkmark for verified senders

• Brand information

• Direct website link, email and phone numbers

The advantage of RCS Sender Verification

Verified sender profiles for RCS Business are one of the key measures to gain customer trust. Customers will see your business logo at the top of the message conversation, as well as your official company name with the verified checkmark, brand colours and your business details such as your website, email address and telephone number.

These are important cues for your customers to know that the messages they are receiving are legit and that the sender can be trusted. Equally important, is that the absence of these cues means that they should be wary. When your customers know and trust that the messages they are receiving are from your company, they’re more likely to meaningfully engage.

These trusted visual cues are great for customer engagement, but they are also an ideal solution for exchanging sensitive information such as One Time Passwords.

RCS business messaging and 2FA

Another way to protect your customers from fraud is by protecting online data with Two-Factor Authentication (2FA). 2FA is the most common form of Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), in which a person needs to identify themselves through multiple verification measures before granting them access to online accounts. Verification is usually based on the following factors:

• Something a person knows, like a Password or a PIN

• Something a person possesses, like a verification code or One Time Password (OTP)

• Something a person is, like a fingerprint or facial recognition.

As the name 'Two-Factor Authentication' implies, it requires only two of these factors to identify a person. More often than not, businesses already have logged-in environments and password policies in place. That's authentication factor one. The second authentication factor that most businesses implement is a One Time Password.

One Time Passwords can be sent from a variety of channels, but the verified sender profiles of RCS business offer additional security. Knowing the source of the messages containing the OTPs is legit can help build customer trust and it will help your customers recognise imposter OTP messages with malicious links.

RCS vs SMS 2FA

SMS doesn't offer verified sender profiles, nor are its messages encrypted, yet it is to date the most commonly used channel to send OTPs. Why? Well, what SMS lacks in encryption and trust, it makes up for in reach and effectiveness.

One of the key factors of a successful security strategy is the adoption of it by your customers. And customers will adopt something more easily when it's effortlessly available. SMS is supported everywhere, and that makes it a suitable candidate for 2FA. Even in cases where other channels are used to send OTPs, it is advised to use SMS as a fallback channel to make sure that no customer gets left behind.

Now that Apple confirmed that they'll release RCS on iOS by the end of 2024, RCS might just start competing with the range and accessibility that SMS offers, with the added benefit of sender-verified profiles.

Your RCS business messaging provider

CM.com has over 25 years of experience and 1000+ mobile carrier connections worldwide. Send promotional messages with personalised offers that your customers will actually read with confidence and strengthen security with verified sender profiles and two-factor authentication (2FA) via RCS.

Secure your accounts and build customer trust with the power of RCS via our Connectivity Platform and benefit from our expertise in the field and our omnichannel capabilities. We offer one platform for all conversations. Benefit from multiple communication channels via one easily integrated API. Reach your customers on their preferred communication channels, add fallback channels and elevate your customer engagement.