Mobile Scams
Text Messaging or SMS (Short Message Service) has been a mainstay of mobile communications since the early 90's and scammers have uitliized it as another way to trick you out of money or your personal information.
Scammers send fake text messages to trick you into giving them your personal information - things like your password, account number, or Social Security number. If they get that information, they could gain access to your email, bank, or other accounts. Or they could sell your information to other scammers.
Identifying SMS Scams
One of the most common phishing attacks over SMS is where the scammer pretend to be a familar company such as your bank, email or other accounts. Often they will try to get you to click a link to a malicious website.
Scam text example:
You can see the text message here seems to be from Apple and looks like a legitimate two factor authentication notification. If you take a second look at the link in the message, you will see an issue.
In general, make sure you look at the main part of the domain (called the Root Domain along with the Extension) to verify that the URL is legitimate. URL's in SMS/Text message cannot be hidden behind different text, they have to be completely visible so you need to keep an eye on what is in that link.
In the fraudulent text, you see the domain is "login-ios.com", and that is not a legitimate URL for Apple.
Click here for a more detailed breakdown of URLs.
Package Delivery Scam
One scam that has very prevalent recently is a "package delivery" message wanting you to click a link or verify some information.
As many people are shopping on line and regularly ordering packages, it's not difficult for a scammer to send a phishing text the same time someone is expecting a package and trick someone into clicking a dangerous link or collecting personal information.
Verify the source of a text before you click links or respond. As shown above in the URL breakdown, verify the "root domain" to be legitimate before clicking the link.
As always if you have questions about texts or other communications you are not sure about, please give our Technical Support a call at 503.266.8111.
