Smishing is when cybercriminals target their victims by texting. This type of phishing attempt is even more effective than other types of phishing attempts because many users do not have antivirus or anti-phishing software on their phones.
In addition, for mobile users, especially older users, it can be very difficult to assess the authenticity of a text message. This is another reason why SMS-based fraud has such a high rate of success.
Also, there’s a high number of smartphone users making smishing quite a valuable scamming approach. In addition, the fact that most people do not know about smishing makes them even more vulnerable to these targeted attacks.
Protect Yourself
If you receive a message that urges you to take action quickly via SMS, find out whether the message is genuine or not.
If the message contains a link and an urgent call-to-action, it’s probably a smishing message. If the message comes from an unknown number, don’t respond.
In addition, most smishing attacks depend on users giving their information away to phishing sites or installing malware apps on their phone — so a good antivirus and anti-phishing apps will be able to provide multi-layered protection.
