Smishing is one of the most commonly used techniques by scammers. It is a variation of traditional phishing that is spread via SMS and whose objective is to deceive victims. impersonate a business or banking entityThere are many examples, such as fake text messages from the Post Office or supposed messages from the Treasury.
Cases of smishing in which fraudsters pretend to be a banking entity are particularly dangerous, because if you fall into the trap we could lose all our moneyThe goal is always the same: fraudsters try to trick us into entering our credentials on a fraudulent website using various social engineering techniques.
The goal of the fraudsters is to create a sense of urgency
One of the most common deceptions is to make victims believe that someone is logged into your bank account. This is a problem that affects customers of many different banks: there are cases of identity theft of banking entities such as ING, BBVA and Santander, among others. As ING itself warns on its website, the scam begins with an SMS warning us that someone has accessed our account.
These messages always include a link from which we can supposedly block access to intruders. Although it is easy to detect that we are facing a scam if we are not customers of the bank, those who have an account in the bank in question will be more likely to fall into the trap.
The goal of the scammers is generate a sense of urgency to save us a lot of time to think: if we are a bank customer, it is very likely that we will worry and click on the link to block access to the person who has just accessed the account.
This is where the problem begins, since the website to which the link sent by the fraudsters refers us is a fraudulent page that impersonates the bank’s website. As you may have imagined, our credentials will fall into the hands of scammers if we enter them on the website the link takes us to.
ING has shared more details about how this scam works, stating that once the fraudsters obtain our data They will try to take money from the ATM. Of course, to achieve this you will need to enter a verification code that we will receive on our mobile phone.
The next part of the scam takes place over the phone.: The fraudsters are calling us again pretending to be from the bank and claiming to be trying to block unauthorized access. To do this, they need us to confirm the password we just received by SMS. If you provide this code, the fraudsters will have no problem withdrawing the money from the bank.
At this point, it is worth emphasizing the importance of stay calm and wary in case you receive this type of message. We must remind you that our bank will never contact us by SMS or email with a link to carry out any procedure. In case of doubt, it is advisable to contact the bank directly, but never via the information provided in the message we received.
Cover Image | Microsoft Designer Image Creator
In Xataka Android | He pretended to be someone on WhatsApp and scammed his contacts out of 6,000 dollars. Now they have located him
