SMiShing- Who is Hacking Your Mobile Phone?

Just when you thought you had upgraded security on your laptop, desktop, and credit cards, it seems your mobile phone could be the next device ready to be hacked.

It appears that SMiShing is the next ‘big’ thing. SMiShing? SMS Phishing to be precise, not quite as entertaining or innocuous as the word suggests, and a growing form of identity theft.

This is a way of gaining personal information from your phone in a scam used by identity thefts, garnering information stored on your device against you. They have been known to send you an SMS with links to malicious web pages, in the guise of a friend, or trusted source, like your bank. Clicking on the link takes you to the Trojan virus laden page which then gets downloaded to your phone, allowing the thieves to gather all kinds of information about the handset user, and on occasion allowing for remote use and audio hacking of your phone. That’s right kids. They will be able to listen in, not only when you’re on a call, but potentially whenever they feel like it.

So what can you do about it?

Good question. You can’t stop it, but you can minimise the risk – a bit like everything these days really. Don’t open SMS or texts from any source you’re not able to recognise or you feel are suspicious, or cannot verify coming from the sender. Caller ID gets used to trick you into thinking the calls and messages are from your trusted sources. Not a bad idea to look at some anti virus software, but really, it’s just staying one step ahead of the next scam on the scammers books.

http://www.wral.com/5onyourside/story/7038907/

http://article.wn.com/view/2011/02/27/Smishing_uses_text_message_to_fish_for_your_data/

http://www.komonews.com/news/consumer/First-it-was-phishing-now-smishing-is-a-growing-problem-146914435.html