In this digital era, smartphones have become an important part of our daily life. We use smartphones for online communication, shopping, payments, and even buying some food. They have positively revolutionized our life. But, the usage of smartphones has its drawbacks as well. As online hackers are becoming more active with new traps. One of the traps they are using is smishing. It’s a dangerous form of cyberattacks. Because many people are concerned due to these attacks, we will discuss in detail the smishing attack, their impact, and prevention in this article.
What is Smishing
Smishing is just like phishing. In a smishing attack, hackers use SMS service instead of email service. They send you an SMS containing attractive content to convince you to open the given link. That link will be of some fake website that exactly looks like the original one. Then they will ask you to provide your personal data. If you follow their instructions, it will lead you to lose your money, or they can use your personal details and data for illegal activities.
Types of Smishing
Smishing attacks are using various methods these days. But, we will discuss some of the most important methods only.
- The message may contain some information regarding an application you are using. For example, they will ask you to verify your billing method.
- Message from some company, informing you about the big prize you have won.
- In the message, they may ask you about the personal details for the sake of some pandemic, for example, COVID-19 these days.
- Message from some charity trust for donations.
- Messages from banks or insurance companies informing you about the issue with your account that needs to be resolved quickly.
How it Works
Let’s have a look at how a smishing attack takes place.
1- You receive a text message from hackers. They use very similar but fake phone numbers to ensure that SMS is coming from a genuine source. Therefore, that message also contains something related to that phone number to show it as the real one. For example, if they have hacked the bank number, they will ask you about your bank details. If they can gather general information regarding you, they may ask you for some specific details. They do it so carefully that your start to believe that the messages you receive are from the same app or site you are already using.
2- Hackers change the content of the message depending on the person. But, the basic purpose of the message remains the same. They want to stir a sense of emergency to compel you to take actions according to their goals.
3- The third step is the most important one. Because this step will decide what is going to happen next. You can ignore the message and stay in the safe zone. But, if you click on the given link, it will take you to the fake website. On that website, hackers will either ask you to provide your personal details or download software to complete the process. If you download that app or program, this will give them access to your phone’s data including personal details. And, this is what they are looking for.
Common Things in Smishing Attacks
Smishing attacks vary from case to case, but there are some things present in every such attack. Let’s have a look at some of the common things present in every smishing attack.
Smishing Attack Tends to be Original
Hackers are very smart; they don’t send messages that can be identified as fraud easily. They send specialized texts making it very difficult for a layman to identify the fraud.
Smishing Frauds carry Links
The main purpose of these messages is to make people trust messages to perform their criminal activities. Therefore, these messages contain a link to some website. This will lead you to some fake website to gain your personal data.
Hackers Create a Sense of Urgency
This is a very successful strategy utilized by SMS phishers. They play with your feelings by making a desire to react quickly. You get frenzy and react quickly to the hackers that put you in a difficult situation.
Tips to prevent yourself from Smishing Attacks
Hackers use various methods to carry the smishing attacks. Therefore, we should be prepared in advance to tackle these attacks. To achieve this, the following tips can help a lot.
- If you receive a message from an unknown number, ignore it. You even don’t need to open that message.
- In case, you have opened the message, do not click on any link given in the message, because, it may lead to some scam.
- On the off chance that you have tapped on the link in a frenzy or excitement of losing or getting something special. Don’t provide your sensitive data like username, password, or financial details. Your bank will never ask you about your personal details through an SMS.
- In case you have provided the details on that link, don’t waste your time and take necessary action against them. Contact the concerned department as soon as possible. Report the culprits and save yourself from a big loss. For example, you have provided your banking details, contact your bank, and report the fraud.
- If you found that someone is trying to breach your privacy, don’t try to keep it a secret. Immediately inform your employees about it. And make sure, your website does not ask your clients about their personal details.
- Further, block these numbers to avoid smishing attacks in the future.
The Final Words
With the advancement of technology, smishing attacks are on the rise. Unfortunately, we can minimize smishing attacks but cannot eliminate them completely due to various reasons. But, you can do your best to avoid these attacks. The most important thing in this regard is the understanding of the method being used by the hackers for smishing attacks. By following the easy to understand tips given above, you can avoid these attacks up to a great extent.