BBB Tip of the Week: Smishing

Are you vulnerable to smishing attacks? You are if you have a smartphone and use texting. Smishing is like phishing, but instead of using email, perpetrators send you a text message in an attempt to gather your personal or financial information or use your phone for malicious attacks on others.

In smishing, scammers use text messages to send links to websites that download malware on your phone or email addresses that prompt you to fall into a social engineering scam, or just to elicit a response in order to gain your trust and your money.

In one example, the text message says that it is verifying that you signed up for a premium monthly service charged to your monthly phone bill unless you click the website link. In another example, a text informs that you’ve been chosen to manage a multimillion dollar charity project and will be rewarded for your work if you respond to an email address.

Of course criminals get creative, so you can count on different smishing tactics to arise. Better Business Bureau offers the following tips to avoid smishing attempts:

Don’t click links in text messages sent by someone you don’t know.

Be suspicious of links sent in texts by people you do know. Your friend’s phone could have been compromised or stolen. A hacker could be spoofing, or pretending, to be someone you know.

If someone asks for your personal or financial information or an account log-in or password by text, don’t respond. You should never give this information to anyone over a text message.

Be suspicious of texts that seem to originate from emails or numbers that are not phone numbers. Such tactics are used by scammers to mask their identity.

Never respond to “urgent” text messages that threaten a negative outcome if you don’t click a link or respond. Instead, take a moment and think of an alternate method to verify the authenticity of the text, such as calling your bank or credit card directly or checking your accounts directly at a website you know to be authentic.

Report spam text messages to your phone carrier by forwarding them to 7726 (SPAM), a free service.

Download security software for your phone that protects against viruses, malware and spyware.

To report scams to BBB, visit www.bbb.org/scamtracker or call (509) 455-4200.