Sophos discovers SMS phishing scam as Apple 'chatbot' - ITREALMS

ITREALMS ... making leadership SENSE with digital news!

Latest findings by Sophos has shown that the Short Messaging Service (SMS) have been targets by cybercriminals using it to attract endusers, especially on Apple products, reports ITREALMS.

Although for some, "Aren’t SMSes dead? Aren’t they just plain old text anyway? Surely they’re of no interest to cybercriminals any more?" 

So, SMSes aren’t dead at all – they’re still widely used because of their simplicity and convenience, according to this report by Naked Security. 

Indeed, as a general-purpose short message service – which is literally what the letters SMS stand for it’s hard to beat, because any phone can receive text messages, from the fanciest smartphone to the cheapest pre-paid mobile. 

If all you need to transmit is a 6-digit logon code or a “pizza driver now 2 minutes away” notification, SMSes still make excellent business sense. 

Sadly, however, what works for legitimate businesses almost always works for cybercriminals too, so there are plenty of crooks still using SMSes for phishing – an attack that’s wryly known as smishing.