SMS scam: beware of this really dangerous message

SMS scam: Beware of this really dangerous message. It might not seem like a serious thing, but instead…

Hackers specialize in common forms of phishing and increasingly disguised scams. You have to pay attention to certain details to unveil the mystery and not fall into it.

Smartphone messages (AnsaFoto)

Cybercriminals are constantly on the lookout for new scams to redirect users. We have been talking for several months about emails containing “phishing” links. Each time, different institutional brand names are used to trap the unfortunate. Whether it’s the alleged Poste Italiane site, rather than a phone company or even Amazon for an undelivered package, the scheme always remains the same. At the end, you are kind of prompted to enter your credentials to transfer access to the platform. This sensitive data is recorded and used for the aforementioned scam. They range from emptied accounts to exhausted telephone credits, up to the creation of false accounts for other illicit maneuvers. In the past few hours what has happened is an SMS scam. Recipients are prompted to enter the URLs into their browsers.

SMS scam: how it works and how to try to avoid it

Phone scam message (Pixabay)

The cautionary warning came directly from Dominic Ligot, the founder of Data Ethics PH, who first spoke out on Twitter about the scheme on October 6.

“The most common scams have the website URL linked to a hyperlink in the message. This time the URL is simply written in plain text. The sender asks the recipient to copy or type the URL into online browsers.

Going into the details of what the SMS message in question contains, it can be seen that the number used by the sender did not have an SMS ID. In the reply section, another user claimed to have received the same SMS.

“I received a similar spam text a few days ago. I called the number in your screenshot just now. It’s unreachable,” the user posted on Twitter. The tip that is addressed to everyone is always the same, i.e. avoid clicking on any link present and if possible delete the message immediately.