The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has warned Americans against growing SMS phishing attacks. The attackers are aiming to steal personal details and money.
The warning against SMS phishing
The FCC has been tracking the total number of consumer complaints, including text messages and calls.
- Complaints regarding unwanted text messages have grown from 15,300 in 2021 to 8,500 by June 2022.
- Additionally, some independent reports estimated around billions of robotexts being sent each month. For example, RoboKiller had estimated that consumers received over 12 billion texts in June.
How do they work?
To carry out robotexts, scammers use different types of lures to fool a user into giving up their confidential information.
- The phishing text messages can be spoofed to make it look like they are coming from someone who can be trusted, such as a government agency or businesses a victim already knows.
- The false-yet believable smishing baits, as reported by consumers to the FCC, include claims regarding unpaid bills, package delivery issues, law enforcement actions, or bank account problems.
- Some of the convincing lures in text phishing attacks are links redirecting the targets to landing pages, mimicking bank websites and asking to verify a purchase or unfreeze credit cards.
What to do?
The FCC recommends not responding to texts from unknown numbers or suspicious people. Further, never share personal or financial information via text, and be alert of misspellings or texts in the email address. In case one is already impacted, the victims are suggested to file a complaint with the FCC.
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