Mass Viber messages, reporting incidents and talking to children about harmful content

On Boje jutra on TV Vijesti, as an information security expert from the Association of Security Managers of Montenegro, I talked about the shocking messages many young people and adults in Montenegro had recently received over Viber. We talked about why such messages are hard to stop and trace, how ready our institutions are and what parents can do.

Messages that reach every number on Viber

Such messages are mostly sent with automated tools that use lists of phone numbers or even generate them at random. A number only has to be registered on Viber for its user to get the message, even with no previous contact. The senders mostly do not care how old the users are, because they want to reach as many numbers as possible, so the messages reach children too. Mass sending from unknown, often foreign numbers usually points to organised, systematic abuse of a platform such as Viber.

Encryption, investigations and reporting

Tracing these messages is harder because Viber and similar apps encrypt them. Encryption protects users’ privacy, but it also means that Viber cannot see the content until you share it with them, so no automatic filter can stop a message before it reaches your device. That is why we have to report the message, first to Viber and then to the competent authorities.

Investigations are hard for technical reasons and because of anonymity. Internet providers in Montenegro have no access to the content of messages, but once an investigation is opened, they give the authorities technical data on request, such as IP addresses and the owners of numbers registered in Montenegro. Viber takes part too and can block suspicious accounts and provide data, but without reports from users it is hard to recognise campaigns like this in time.

When a message comes from an unknown sender, Viber usually lets you report and block the number straight away, which helps the police find the senders. You can also report it at cirt.gov.me, where any incident or abuse can be reported and an investigation opened officially.

Growing cybercrime and limited resources

Incidents like this happen far too often. Every day, citizens and companies all over the world are flooded with attacks that come in waves and hit different territories, organisations and users. Since the arrival of AI, cybercrime has grown significantly, because attacks are more automated and a very small team can carry them out on a massive scale.

Montenegro has definitely made progress in recent years, and according to the latest reports there are more staff in the Ministry of the Interior, in the CIRT for state bodies and in the national CIRT, who are continuously trained for threats like these. Progress picked up after the cyberattack in 2022, but resources are still limited, in both people and technology, and investigations like this need more experts and faster cooperation between institutions.

Talk to children before banning anything

Children can share content like this out of curiosity or without realising it, especially something as shocking as the Viber messages we all received. I got them three times on my own number, so I can imagine how far they spread, although we still have no precise data. The most important thing is education, from parents or an expert, who can explain to children how harmful this content really is and how to deal with it.

Education is ever more accessible, and a couple of questions to a tool such as Perplexity or ChatGPT quickly give parents comprehensive answers, even on how best to explain these threats to children. My advice to all parents is to start with a conversation before turning to stricter measures such as banning devices or blocking apps.

Family settings built into phones

Android and Apple devices already have built-in tools for parents:

• —Google Family Link on Android lets a parent add their children’s devices to the family, supervise them, set time limits, allow safer apps and block harmful ones.
• —On Apple devices, you can create a child’s iCloud account, add it to the family account and apply similar settings.

Complete supervision is not realistic, because children learn much faster than parents how to use hidden chats and apps, and several profiles to get around age restrictions. Instead of trying to control everything, parents should invest time in trust and open communication, which together with proper education is, in my opinion, the best way to approach the problem.

Finally, asked whether such messages can be stopped, I said they can only be reported and dealt with reactively.

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