What is Smishing ?

Unfortunately there are always new threats which come out daily but more so during the holiday season. The holiday season is a busy time everyone is making food, making purchases or making travel plans to visit loved ones.  This is one of the most wonderful times of the year but it is when most fraudsters will attempt to gain access to your personal accounts information.

So there is a form of fraud called smishing or SMS phishing which is gaining traction because of where the attack is focused. The purpose of the attack is to gain access to your personal banking/credit card account number and access to your PIN. How it works is you will get a text fraudulent text from a bank possibly a bank you are familiar with or well-known informing you that you have been the victim of a breach. In order to address the alleged breach you must contact a toll free number. When you call the perpetrator will ask for your PIN and account information so they can stop the alleged breach. 

Please do not fall victim to this attack, should you receive such a text contact your bank directly do not text or call the number back. 

Another form of smishing would be a text from an unknown number stating something like “we are confirming your sign up for some type of service” with a link attached the text will instruct you to use the same link to unsubscribe from the offer. If you are not sure what the source of the text is you should delete the text and block the text messages.  There are many applications you could download to protect your phone from possible infected SMS messages.

Please be safe from this threat this one is a little different because it targets your phone we all have a bad habit of answering messages immediately this time I ask you to take a moment to carefully monitor all your messages before you decided to open any attached link or respond.

Again I ask you to please to donate to Puerto Rico they still need our help

I hope this helps as always please leave a message

Mark Carbajal