Phishing by mobile phone SMS message or ‘smishing’ as it has (inevitably) been dubbed, is a new way to carry out an old crime.
McAfee reported that phone users in Iceland and Australia received text messages telling that they had to go to a website to ‘unsubscribe’ from an expensive dating website. Of course, the website installed a virus on the hapless victims.
A more recent attack invited users to download anti-virus software for their phone. In fact, it installed a phone virus. What was particularly sinister about this attack was that the text messages originated from infected PCs which used computerised SMS gateways to send the messages. F-Secure are also reporting phishing attacks by SMS in SE Asia.
These attacks suggest that criminals have turned their attention to mobile phones. We can expect to see more virus, spam and phishing attacks on mobile phones using SMS, mobile internet connections, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.
This is especially true as more and more phones come with high speed data connections. The analyst firm, Gartner, reckon that over 212 million smartphones will be sold in 2008 (reported in NetworkWorld). These systems are, in effect, phone-sized computers with data connections. In other words,there are more and more phone targets for criminals.
For now, be careful about clicking on embedded internet links in text messages. You should also use your common sense if you get an unexpected text message. That lottery win could be a con trick. The ‘free’ anti-virus software could turn out to be a virus.
For more advice on protecting your mobile phone, visit our main site. Check out our advice on how fraudsters trick you into doing what they want.
