How many accounts did the company block?

In 2022 the company is blocked in Ukraine 130 thousand accounts phone scammers and spammers. Subsequently, thanks to the improvement of internal tools for behavioral assessment and artificial intelligence, the number of fraud reports on Rakuten Viber in Ukraine in 2023 decreased several times: 37 thousand accounts.

Dynamics of fraud and spam call reports in Rakuten Viber in 2022-2023:

• The total number of users reporting phone spam or scams in 2023 was approximately 60,000. This is almost five times less than in the previous year, 2022.
• In 2023, approximately 450,000 Ukrainians received calls from spammers or scammers. This is 3.6 times less than last year in 2022.

Viber messenger has built-in special technologies to monitor and reduce the level of phone fraud and spam, and is also working on additional protection for users. The anti-spam system blocks accounts it detects as fraudulent based on a number of different factors, including behavioral factors.

One of the most important additional security features contributing to the decrease in spam complaints in 2023 is Caller ID. It appeared on Viber in Ukraine for Android users last fall. “Caller ID” helps users detect incoming calls from unknown callers and directly warns of possible spam and fraud. Users can also mark incoming calls as spam after the call ends, which can help Viber improve its security in the future.

You can also enjoy other privacy and security features on Viber:

• Manage message requests from unknown numbers in a separate folder (Settings – Privacy menu);
• In the same place, turn on automatic check for spam;
• Configure adding to groups if necessary and limit adding to only contacts in the phonebook;
• Turn on the caller ID function on Android (Settings menu – Calls and messages).

Additionally, all chats and private calls on Rakuten Viber are encrypted with end-to-end encryption. This means that only interlocutors can access them.