Scammers use SMS to deliver ‘smishing’ and ‘SPASMS’ attacks

Scammers have found a new way to con money out of people – SMS. The latest round of attacks dubbed “smishing” and “SPASMS” con users into believing they have won $123,000 but users must reply to the message with their email address for instructions on how to claim the money.

Victims are also enticed to pay a small ‘courier’ fee in order to receive a much larger sum of money, but the prize never arrives and the scammers then collect the money.

Jay Liew, a security researcher with Websense Security Labs in the US, said scammers were turning to SMS because mainstream consumers were beginning to wise up to phishing scams sent by email. He said people tend to let their guard down when receiving SMS messages, especially because mobiles do not have spam filters.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission recently published an alert on its SCAMwatch website informing people of the scam.

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