Ask HN: Daily Twilio OTP attacks, why, just why?

by sf4liferon 9/19/2023, 9:44 PMwith 5 comments

We're experiencing daily twilio OTP attacks that create accounts. We block IPs and have throttled rate of account creation. But other than running up our bills (~$10 / day) I don't understand what they gain from this. Why are they doing this? What am I missing?

by leftcenterrighton 9/20/2023, 7:24 PM

Most likely this is being abused for SMS pumping fraud where rogue network providers/small providers complicit in fraud use the traffic to generate revenue.

- https://support.twilio.com/hc/en-us/articles/8360406023067-S...

by tripueon 9/19/2023, 9:52 PM

They often take a share of the revenue from those attacks through iprn number or other fraud schemes

by Raed667on 9/20/2023, 4:33 PM

If your business is local, maybe limit the accepted numbers to a specific area or country.

Otherwise try to understand if they're automating account creation or are they doing it manually? maybe a captcha/turnstile during sing-up can slow them down?

Anyway, Twillio really dropped the ball on this problem, but why should they care as long as it keeps making them money?