Android Messages now have verified SMS & spam protection

Google just rolled out two important features to Android Messages yesterday. One is Verified SMS, which will ensure that the text messages that you receive from certain companies are legitimate. Another feature is spam protection that will warn users of suspected spam and thus keep them safe from phishing attempts.

These rollouts are critical because mobile-based scams have been on the rise from the past few years and these features will certainly have an impact. Verified SMS is quite limited as it’s only available for a few businesses, but this is just the beginning and major changes won’t take so long.

The key purpose of Verified SMS is to help users identify the messages that they receive from businesses. Normally, cases like two-factor authentication or account recovery codes are real and not some veiled phishing attempts. In order to ensure this, whenever a user receives a text message from a company enrolled in Verified SMS, the user can see the company name and logo in the conversation along with a Google verification badge.

Then comes spam protection, which does exactly as the name suggests. Google comes in with thread alerts when it finds suspicions messages that can possibly be spam. Android users can also report spam messages and block senders altogether.