How to enable suspicious message alerts and protect yourself from spam in Android 13
Once upon a gloomy midnight, I was inundated with a barrage of spam and malicious messages on Android. Every morning I woke up wondering how many messages like this would plunder my phone.
But then Google got smart and added features that would help prevent this endless rain of unwanted messages. It took Google a while to get it right, but as the platform has evolved, the amount of spam and potentially malicious messages I receive has drastically reduced.
You may be wondering if simply wiping away and deleting those messages isn’t enough?
To a certain extent, of course. However, there are instances when these messages are not only annoying but can potentially be dangerous. The number of phishing and smishing attempts I receive every day would be unbearable if it wasn’t for the ability to enable suspicious message notifications in Android.
Likewise: How to configure Android to handle incoming spam calls
What do suspicious message alerts do?
Good question. The answer is simple. Suspicious message alerts let you know when a text message contains a suspicious request, a fake link, or is another type of potential scam. In many cases, Android automatically responds to these alerts and immediately moves these messages to your spam folder (so you don’t have to do anything with them).
If this sounds like a feature you’d like to enable, follow me and I’ll show you the way.
How to enable notifications of suspicious messages
On your Android device, open the Settings app. From there, go to Security > Advanced Settings. In this window you should see a list of “Suspicious Message Alerts”.
Turning on notifications of suspicious messages is a lot easier than you probably thought. Image: Jack Wallen
On the resulting page, tap the ON/OFF slider for “Allow Notifications”.
Enabling suspicious message alerts in Android 13. Image: Jack Wallen
Likewise: How to get more security from Android messages
Activate spam protection
There’s one more feature you’ll want to enable, and that’s spam protection. While turning on notifications of suspicious messages is a good start, you should also turn on anti-spam, which automatically detects spam and sends Google the data it needs so it can continually improve the functionality that protects your device from spam.
To do this, open the Messages app, tap the three-dot menu to the right of the search bar, tap Settings, and then tap Antispam. On the resulting page, move the ON/OFF slider to the ON position.
Enable spam protection in Android 13. Image: Jack Wallen
Lo and behold, you’ve just given your Android device a helping hand so that it, in turn, can help you avoid the onslaught of spam and malicious messages.
Likewise: This sneaky scam looks like an email forwarded by your boss
But even with the added protection, I’d be remiss if I didn’t warn you never to tap a link or reply to a message from an unknown sender. Even if you only reply “Wrong Person” to that sender, you’ve given them everything they need to then hit you with an even more dangerous attack. If you don’t recognize a name or phone number, this message should be marked as spam and blocked.