Categories: Tips

How to Defend Yourself from Smishing the SMS Scam

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Have you ever heard of smishing SMS scams where in most cases users of the Post and Bank are targeted? Smishing sends text messages to mobile phones to lure victims into the trap and extract personal information, credit card numbers and other confidential data.

If you are interested and want to know how to recognize a malicious message and how to defend yourself from smishing the scam via SMS, take five minutes of your time and continue reading the next paragraphs.

Did you get a strange text message on your cell phone? Here’s how to defend yourself from smishing SMS scams.

How to Defend Yourself from Smishing the SMS Scam

The name smishing stands for SMS phishing which is a variant of a phishing technique used by criminals to trap the unfortunate victim and steal personal information such as credit card number and other confidential data.

Unlike phishing that uses emails to spread its scam campaigns, smishing uses SMS messages to request confidential information from the user involved.

How to defend yourself from smishing

But how to protect yourself from smishing the SMS scam? There are several ways to protect yourself and defend yourself from this scam sent via text message, the first protection obviously is to avoid replying to what you are asked or clicking on the link inserted. But without wasting time let’s see what are all the standard tips to be adopted to defend against smishing messages.

Look at the origin of the text message : Just to give an example if you receive an SMS from Amazon informing you that a package is being delivered and checking the phone number from which the SMS message comes is true, do not trust as the scammer may very well spoof the number from which the message comes and also caller ID.
Ignore delivery notices : If you do not expect any packages or deliveries, do not send replies to these messages received via SMS.
Do not provide personal information : If you have accidentally clicked on the link inserted in a text message that comes from your bank and says “we have lost your credentials”, absolutely do not provide any personal data. Call your bank and ask if the message is true.
You have won a prize : Usual messages too good to be true nobody gives away anything like free prizes. If they tell you you’ve won a prize, but they also want your credit card number in the message for some reason. In this case you already know that you absolutely do not have to provide anything.
Do not download or install any software or apps that are sent to you via SMS.

How to block spam sent by SMS

Fortunately, for both Android and iPhone, there are some built-in tools and third-party applications that allow you to automatically block text messages considered spam. The operation is very simple once you receive an SMS from one of these suspicious numbers it is filtered and placed on a blacklist.

Android

Let’s start with Android Messages the default Google SMS app. If you use Android Messages to block SMS from a user as a first step start the app then locate the message then press on it with your finger for a long time until a prohibition icon appears at the top right.

As a next step, after tapping the prohibition icon, in the window that opens, press the Ok button with your finger to confirm your will to block the sender you just selected.

iPhone

To filter and block messages on iPhone in Messages app from unknown and unwanted senders is very simple. As a first step go to Settings (gear icon) then locate and press with your finger on the Messages item.

Next on the screen where you find yourself turn on the Filter unknown senders switch by setting it to ON.

From now on iMessage notifications will be disabled for all messages from unknown senders not included in your address book that will be moved to the Unknown panel in the Message list .

In this way you also cannot open links sent by an unknown sender for any reason until it is added to your contacts or replies to the message. If the SMS message was spam, tap on Junk located below the text message to delete it and send a notification to Apple.

Block messages with Block Text, SMS, Spam Blocker – Key Messages (Android)

If you want to use a third party app to block unwanted SMS on Android then I recommend you to install for free from the Google Play Store SMS Blocker. This application allows you to create black lists of unwanted senders by blocking messages that come from certain series of numbers or from certain phrases or words.

After installing and starting SMS Blocker from your Android smartphone, from the first screen that appears, follow all the instructions and set as you prefer.

Once you have finished configuring the app from the list that appears, put the check mark next to the name of the sender to be blocked then in the window that appears press the All done button to create a block list.