GSMA's Samantha Kight explains why mobile scams are now an industrial‑scale business, driven by organised crime and accelerated by AI. But what should security leaders do to reduce fraud risk?
Mobile scams are no longer isolated or opportunistic. Drawing on global research and collaboration across the mobile industry, the GSMA's Head of industry Security Samantha Kight explains how scams have overtaken traditional crime in profitability, with social engineering now more effective than technical exploits. As generative AI lowers the barrier to entry for this attack path, legacy networks and uneven digital literacy continue to amplify the problem in certain regions.
We also dig into how defenders are responding. For CISOs and IT leaders, the advice is grounded in fundamentals: focus on basic security hygiene, layered defences, early detection and collaboration across supply chains.
Smartphones are both the most trusted and most targeted device in everyday life, so rebuilding trust in the mobile ecosystem is a shared responsibility.