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FCC Alerts American Users About Rising Smishing Attacks

Smishing attacks and their impact

The FCC (Federal Communications Commission) raised an alert to warn Americans about the increasing danger in smishing (robotexts) attacks that aim for stealing personal information or are used in financial scams. FCC says that Robocall Response Team is alerting consumers to the rising threat of robotexts. 

Substantial increases in consumer complaints to the FCC, reports by non-government robocall and robotext blocking services, and anecdotal and news reporting make it clear that text messages are increasingly being used by scammers to target American consumers.

How are Smishing attacks carried out?

Hackers use various tricks to lure victims into giving out their personal information or sending the hacker money. Sometimes the hackers use SMS that contains incorrect but very real information about unpaid bills, order delivery status, bank account issues, etc. 

According to FCC “consumers who have filed complaints with the FCC say some of the texts resemble email spam, with links to unwanted and unsolicited products. But many of the texts appear to be ploys to steal valuable personal or financial information.” 

In a few cases, the data that is collected from these smishing campaigns are used in the future

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