Most of us pick up our mobile phone within minutes of waking up. Sometimes the devices almost seem glued to our hand. Businesses are recognising our mobile connectivity, and know that internal and external customers are expecting communication by SMS. Digital transformation is demanding rich content. We need SMS security and validation in our communication repertoire.
Originally, the largest barriers are sending large amounts of data, securing the data, and validating where it originated from. Despite the ubiquity and reliability of SMS messaging, some of the challenges we have seen are:
- long multi page SMS messages,
- non-ascii character sets – driving up cost.
- URL’s that are unnecessarily long.
- contending with fraudulent messages, purporting to be from a legitimate organisation. Of course, no one likes a fake text message or scam link.
The Security Challenge
We’ve seen before how the LinkInSMS system solves the problem of sending rich content via SMS. But what about sending secure content, for example in a healthcare context.
Any consumer of healthcare service needs to know that the company handling their data is doing so in a secure way for their benefit. This develops trust and a feeling of safety, particularly as digitisation of healthcare increases.
We see personal data being sent by standard SMS every day. Is there is a typing error in the destination mobile phone number? Could someone pick up my phone when I am not around? What if the data could simply be sent in a secure way via SMS. It can. Simply.
The Rich Content Security Solution
With LinkInSMS, we can secure a private webpage of data, with a security phrase and security answer all delivered via a unique SMS. The secure webpage can be created using the web portal, email to LinkInSMS, or via API. Here’s how to do it.
On the web portal, compose your message, then choose advanced options. Once your SMS body and LinkInSMS page is created, click “Use secure Link In SMS” to define the security phrase and security answer that is relevant to the broadcast.
Using email, simply add Security question and answer parameters in the body of your email, such as:
<SecurityQuestion>Please type your access code</SecurityQuestion>
<SecurityAnswer>564283</SecurityAnswer>
When the recipient sees the incoming SMS, they can preview the link, allowing the LinkInSMS brand and logo to be visible, providing assurance that the link is reputable. When the link is tapped, you are immediately diverted to the security page, where you see the security question and field for answering. The customer sees that the link is authentic, on observing that the sender knows their secret passphrase or code.
The recipient connects to their personal secure webpage of data. Both the security page and the mobile webpage use https. We prevent brute force attacking, by disallowing password attempts for 10 seconds, after 3 incorrect attempts.
LinkInSMS is positioned for the corporate environment with a robust Customer Portal and enterprise communications features. The customer can easily customize the company’s business communications by creating lists of pre-set recipients, setting predefined headings and footers including logos, message templates, and much more.
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