Singapore orders block of iMessage scams that fake government addresses

The Singapore government has ordered Apple to crack down on the spread of fake government messages on iMessage, in a bid to cut down the amount of scams.

Text message scams have been around for many years, and are a constant problem that preys on unsuspecting smartphone users. In Singapore, the government wants Apple and Google to help reduce scam messages.

The Singapore home affairs ministry said police have ordered Apple and Google to stop criminals from spoofing government agencies on iMessage and Google Messages.

The order, made on Tuesday according to Reuters, comes under the country's Online Criminal Harms Act. The police were alerted to scams on both platforms, via messages that claimed to be from SingPost, the postal service.

Though there is already a local SMS registry that limits messages using the "gov.sg" name to specific phone numbers, it doesn't apply to iMessage or Google Messages. The order requires Apple and Google to stop accounts and group chats from using display names that spoof "gov.sg" and other agencies, or filter those messages completely.

The Police said that members of the public may assume "gov.sg" messages on their iPhone are legitimate, in part because text messages and iMessage communications are combined and not easily distinguishable.

Apple and Google have both confirmed to the home affairs ministry that they will comply with the order, and urge users to update their devices and apps.

Spoofing is only one way that online criminals are taking advantage of modern communication systems to carry out their activities. Indeed, the attacks are getting ever more sophisticated as protection systems improve over time.

One example reported in November involved a scammer relying on legitimate alerts and messages from Apple's real systems to fool a user that a fake phone call from Apple Support was legitimate. All in a bid to access the user's Apple account remotely.

Singapore isn't the only territory to ask Apple to fix online fraud. In September, the European Union was looking into whether big tech companies in general should be doing more to curtail the activities of online criminals.