Ayala-led Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) has warned of emerging high-tech scams that exploit both hardware and artificial intelligence, revealing that criminal groups are now using international mobile subscriber identity (IMSI) catchers to target digital banking customers in the country.
In a recent cybersecurity briefing, BPI enterprise information security officer Jon Paz said these methods have only started emerging this year, marking a dangerous escalation in the sophistication of digital scams targeting bank clients.
‘We’re seeing new types of fraud that didn’t exist before 2025,’ Paz said. ‘They use technology that can imitate our systems and even fool the user’s device into thinking a signal or app is legitimate.’
Among the most alarming discoveries are IMSI catchers, or portable devices that masquerade as legitimate cell towers to send text messages appearing to come from official numbers such as BPI, other financial institutions or even government hotlines.
‘The telcos do not have an effective antidote here,’ Paz said. ‘The traffic between the IMSI catchers and the mobile device are local, meaning they don’t go through the telco networks.’
Because the fake signals never reach the telecom system, these messages could not be traced or filtered, making them especially dangerous.
Paz said the devices are small enough to be carried in backpacks or vehicles and have been found in the possession of foreign nationals, including Chinese individuals allegedly involved in the illegal operations.
BPI said it supports the National Telecommunications Commission’s planned phaseout of 2G and 3G networks, which are vulnerable to these signal interception devices.
‘One of the effective controls currently that we can bring to bear is the deactivation of 2G,’ Paz said, emphasizing that newer 4G and 5G technologies have stronger encryption and authentication layers.
The listed bank also warned of a new wave of mobile scams that use fake eGov or other government app update notifications to trick users into installing malicious software.
The economic impact of digital fraud is significant.
Citing data from the Global Anti-Scam Alliance, Paz said Filipinos collectively lost P460 billion to scams in 2024, equivalent to 1.9 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP).
‘If those losses were prevented, GDP could have been higher by roughly a third,’ he said, underscoring how online fraud now affects not only consumers but also the broader economy.