Author: Amy Cadagin, M3AAWG Executive Director

In October, M3AAWG brought together anti-abuse professionals from across disciplines to discuss the latest online threats and work collaboratively to develop best practices for identifying and preventing emerging forms of messaging abuse. The meeting marked a milestone for the organization, which in its sixteen year history has gathered cybersecurity professionals at 50 meetings to tackle the industry’s most pressing security challenges across a wide variety of topics, including 5G, stalkerware, artificial intelligence, robodiallers, abuse operations & GDPR, and much more.

To commemorate M3AAWG’s 50th General Meeting in October, we recently catalogued our evolution since our founding 16 years ago. We’ve come a long way and we’re excited to continue growing alongside our members and partners. As we continue to reflect, we’d be remiss if we did not highlight the extraordinary contributions of the leaders – past and present – that have paved the way for all M3AAWG members to be a catalyst for change within the online ecosystem. Without their continuous dedication, M3AAWG surely would not be the organization it is today.

As schools ramp up virtual teaching and companies continue working remotely, maintaining our digital connections and keeping websites up and running is more crucial than ever before. But we’re seeing a sharp increase in Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks in 2020: there were almost double the amount of attacks in the first quarter of 2020 compared to Q4 2019. This is part of a continuous upward trajectory over 30 years.

At M3AAWG’s 49th General Meeting, the COVID-19 pandemic was a central focus of the session “Is COVID-19 the Cure for Fraud?” The joint session, facilitated by M3AAWG and the Communications Fraud Control Association (CFCA), brought together professionals from across messaging to discuss the pandemic’s impact on the online fraud landscape.