Hello Bitdefender Community 👋,
As a frequent traveler across the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, I’ve come to realize something the hard way: cyber-threats don’t wait for you to have a stable internet connection.
Over the past years I’ve relied on Bitdefender to keep my devices safe.
But during my travels — airports, roaming SIM cards, public Wi-Fi — I’ve faced situations that revealed gaps that even strong cloud-based protection can’t fully cover.
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✈️ My Real-World Experience
While traveling, I’ve seen how certain attacks — especially USSD-based call/SMS forwarding scams — can exploit telecom networks.
These attacks don’t always leave app-level traces, and sometimes happen even when you’re offline or in airplane-mode transition zones.
In one case, friends of mine almost lost access to their banking OTPs due to call-forwarding tricks triggered by hidden short-codes.
That’s when I realized: offline protection matters just as much as cloud-based intelligence.
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🛡️ Where Bitdefender Shines
Bitdefender has saved me more than once — detecting phishing sites on hotel Wi-Fi, blocking malicious APKs while sideloading travel apps, and keeping my accounts secure.
Equally important, the Bitdefender Community has been an incredible source of help.
Special thanks to @Gjoksi for always sharing clear, step-by-step guidance, to @Alexandru_BD for keeping the connection open between us users and the product team, and to @Flexx for continuously highlighting and pushing forward the features that matter most to the community . 💙
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🚧 Where We Still Need Progress
In discussions across the community, many of us highlighted these needs:
•🟠 Re-introducing USSD Protection — a valuable layer that got sunsetted but remains highly relevant in many regions.
•🟠 Adding an on-device / offline fallback detection engine — to catch threats when the network is down.
•🟠 Stronger integration with telecom-layer risks (like suspicious forwarding codes).
Here’s one of the key ongoing threads that reflects the community’s voice:
🔗 Feature Request: Add Detection Engine for Malicious USSD Forwarding
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🤝 Closing Note
I share this story not as a complaint, but as a call to evolve together.
Bitdefender has already set a high bar for mobile security — now it has the chance to raise it even higher by bridging the gaps we see in the field.
To my fellow community members: your stories and experiences matter.
To the Bitdefender team: thank you for listening and for continually improving the tools that keep millions of us safe.
Let’s keep the dialogue going and make mobile security ready for the real world we live in today.🌍
Stay safe,
— AlFifi_Defender 🛡️
