“Your package is stuck in customs. Click here to pay the fee.” This seemingly innocuous message could well be the start of a financial nightmare. Welcome to the era of smishingwhere your smartphone becomes the Trojan horse of all cybercriminals.
SMS and phishing
Smishing is the contraction of “SMS” and “phishing”, and it is the new favorite weapon of digital scammers. This scam technique does not just send you simple short-term unwanted messages but it directly impersonates official organizations to play on your confidence and better trap you.
Imagine the scene: you receive an urgent SMS from your “bank” asking you to confirm an unusual transaction. The message seems genuine, and the number familiar. In a panic, you click on the link provided – and that’s when the trap closes. In a few seconds, you find yourself on a fraudulent (but realistic-looking) site designed to suck up your personal and banking data.
Do you know about smishing?
📲Crit’Air, Netflix, Carte Vitale or even ANTAI, SMS scams don’t stop!
How to protect yourself from it? @PGratelle explains it to you in My Finances in Brief. #myfinancesinbrief #smishing #scam pic.twitter.com/fFUNnSxVQV
— B SMART 4Change (@B_SMART_TV) March 24, 2023
Stuart Jones, cybersecurity expert at Proofpointexplains that victims are lured into sharing sensitive information, clicking on malicious links, or downloading harmful software. The sophistication of these attacks is such that even the most informed can fall for it, our team explains. colleagues of JDG.
Forward these fraudulent SMS messages to 33700
The Covid-19 pandemic has acted as an accelerator for this type of fraud and the explosion of online procedures has been seen as an opportunity for cybercriminals. The figures are alarming: according to Mobile Ecosystem Forumnext to 40% of consumers have been confronted with a smishing attempt in 2023. Even more worrying, Proofpoint reports a staggering 318% increase in attacks in a single year. On average, there are still 300,000 to 400,000 fraudulent SMS messages sent every day, despite operators’ efforts to block these scams.
The effectiveness of smishing relies on our special relationship with our smartphones: click-through rates on links sent by SMS are up to eight times higher than those of emailsand thus offer scammers an ideal playground.
Faced with this growing threat, the authorities are trying to react. In France, thee 33700 allows you to report suspicious SMS messages: simply forward a fraudulent SMS message to this number so that an investigation can be opened. However, the agility of fraudsters, who constantly change numbers and platforms, makes the task difficult for law enforcement. The influencer Micode has also made a video which shows the behind the scenes of these SMS scams.
The best defense therefore remains vigilance.: Be wary of urgent messages, always check the sender, and never click on a link from an unknown number. If in doubt, contact the relevant organization directly through its official channels. You can also ask those around you to have double confirmation and be sure that the link in the SMS is reliable.
Bitdefender Plus Antivirus
By: Bitdefender
