Be Alert to Investor Risks from SMS Phishing Scams
Learn how to protect yourself from one of the most prominent forms of cybersecurity attacks.
Digital integration is a key component of modern society, with investors increasingly using mobile devices to access financial accounts and online applications allowing for investments to be made quickly from anywhere with phone service or Wi-Fi. However, with this convenience comes risk -- scammers understand this reliance and continue to exploit it to steal data and wealth from investors.
One way that scammers try to steal data and wealth from investors is through smishing, a tactic in which scammers send unsolicited messages to targets over short message service (SMS), or text messages. Though the term smishing comes from a combination of the words phishing and SMS, these scams can also be conducted through other messaging platforms such as iMessage, Google Messages and WhatsApp.
Smishing isn't a new scheme. However, a newer development with this type of fraud involves scammers requesting that targets respond to messages to get around protections put in place by providers that would otherwise automatically deactivate hyperlinks in messages received from unknown numbers.
