SMS Fraud Incident Response Template For Growth And Security Teams
Security, product, and finance leaders get a coordinated playbook to detect SMS pumping, toll fraud, and bot-driven signups using carrier lookup telemetry and cross-functional drills.
Short answer: contain SMS fraud quickly by using carrier-risk alerts, throttling high-risk cohorts, and following a shared runbook across growth, security, and finance teams. For deeper risk signals, explore our advanced signal suite.
Use the sections below as the starting point for an internal runbook, then replace the thresholds and owner names with values from your own signup, OTP, and billing systems.
Early Warning Dashboard Checklist
- Risk score spikes: Alert when high-risk lookup volume rises more than 25% in a 30-minute window.
- Carrier cluster anomalies: Flag surges from carrier families known for disposable numbers or high chargeback rates. Learn to stop fake signups proactively.
- Behavioral drift: Compare purchase, referral, and OTP completion rates to the prior seven-day baseline; bots rarely convert.
- Cost-to-revenue ratio: Build a chart that blends Carrier Reveal spend, SMS gateway invoices, and recovered revenue to justify throttling decisions.
Incident Room Runbook
Decision Tree For Response Actions
| Signal threshold | Impact assessment | Recommended action |
|---|---|---|
| Risk score above 80, conversion under 5% | High likelihood of bot farm attack. | Immediate block of the cohort, require manual review, notify fraud team. |
| Carrier cluster from new geography spikes 3x | Potential promo abuse campaign. | Throttle promo eligibility, add limits, and monitor revenue delta hourly. |
| OTP cost grows faster than verification success | Attackers monetizing message sends. | Cap OTP attempts, introduce alternative verification for trusted users. |
Tabletop Exercise Agenda
- Review last incident metrics and align on the financial impact that triggered executive concern.
- Simulate a new attack using anonymized carrier lookup logs. Ask each stakeholder to outline their first three actions.
- Test communications: have marketing draft a status blurb, support craft macros, and finance outline refund guidelines.
- Update your escalation matrix with names, contact info, and fallback owners in case someone is unavailable.
- Document gaps uncovered during the exercise and assign owners with clear deadlines. Keep compliance aligned with our quarterly compliance radar.
Post-Incident Metrics To Report
- Time-to-containment: Measure the interval between the first alert and the moment fraudulent traffic falls by 90%.
- Recovered spend: Track how much OTP or messaging budget you saved by shutting down the cohort.
- Customer impact: Count legitimate users subjected to extra friction and report how many completed the flow anyway.
- Threshold adjustments: Document risk score changes and why they were justified to maintain transparency with leadership.
Combine these metrics with masked lookup logs and billing records so leadership can see what was blocked, what it cost, and which controls changed after the incident.