The FBI Has Issued A Warning About ‘Smishing’ Scams. Here’s What That Means.
‘Smishing’ is a strange word that I learned about today, I’ve heard of ‘Phishing’, but never ‘Smishing’.
Apparently ‘Smishing’ is becoming a big problem, so what is it?
‘Smishing’ is similar to ‘Phishing’, but instead of scamming you through your email, they are sending you SMS through your text messaging service on your cell phone.
Just like through your email, if you click the link in the SMS text it can lead to your identity being stolen!
Smishing is is the latest form of scams out there in the very useful world of telecommunications. We love our devices. We love being able to go online and communicate with anyone we want and have access to all of these things. But that provides a portal for bad guys to do bad things.”
Aaron Rouse, the FBI’s Special Agent in Charge of the Las Vegas office
If you get a text with a weird link that you are not expecting, do not click it!
You’ll have a loss of access to your device, sometimes. You’ll have afforded somebody access to your device, and you’ll possibly lose personally identifiable information. So it’s something that we just like we say with email. If you didn’t ask for it, don’t click on it.
Aaron Rouse, the FBI’s Special Agent in Charge of the Las Vegas office
Some of these ‘Smishing’ scams will include a link saying you won a prize or to confirm something, and it will appear to be from a company that you likely know and trust.
Some of them may appear to be from a friend or family, do not click it!
If you didn’t ask for it, if you didn’t solicit information regarding that, don’t click on links. Verify who is sending you that information. It’s very easy to do. If you’re getting unsolicited texts, do what I do delete them.
Aaron Rouse, the FBI’s Special Agent in Charge of the Las Vegas office
If you do receive a ‘Smishing’ SMS text message, you need to report it to the FBI so they can shut these people down.
They can be anywhere. It really does depend on the scheme that’s being perpetrated, and the amount of effort behind it. Sometimes we see very widespread scams. It’ll go out and we quickly become aware of it because people will do the right thing, they report it to IC3.gov.
Aaron Rouse, the FBI’s Special Agent in Charge of the Las Vegas office
It’s been hard to track the scammers down because they can literally pull off the scam from ANYWHERE.
To report these scam ‘Smishing’ text messages please visit IC3.gov.
