What Is A 'Smishing' Attack And How To Prevent It?

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15 May 2024

Smishing is an increasingly popular form of cybercrime. It is a type of fraud where a scammer targets individuals through SMS or text messages

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The term is a combination of "SMS" and "phishing". The scam begins with an attacker sending a text message to an individual

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The scam utilises persuasive messages to convince the person to click on a malicious link, download harmful software or reveal sensitive information to the attacker

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Smishing scams often masquerade as legitimate communications from trusted sources, such as banks, well-known brands or government agencies

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The messages often contain a call to action requiring immediate measure to avoid some sort of negative outcome, such as bank accounts being closed

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The tell-tale signs of such scam messages include spelling and grammatical errors, suspicious links, and time-sensitive requests

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Many cybersecurity experts believe smishing will grow more common in the coming years

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To avoid being a victim, people should never click on any suspicious link in an SMS and use updated anti-virus and anti-malware tools

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People are also advised to use a separate email account for personal online transactions and enforce multi-factor authentication

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Many smartphones and carriers nowadays also provide SMS filtering options to identify and block or flag suspicious texts

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