smishing

SMS fraud, or "smishing", is on the rise in many countries, fuelled by the increasing use of smartphones. This is a challenge for telecom operators who are meeting at the Mobile World Congress (MWC), the sector's biggest annual gathering, in Barcelona this week.What is smishing?Smishing is a cybersecurity attack carried out over mobile text messaging, also known as SMS phishing which target both individuals and corporations. The name is a play on the term "phishing", the fraudulent practice of sending emails purporting…

Businesses in China should brace themselves for a potential spike in smishing attacks and identity theft, following reports that the personal data of 1 billion residents in the country has been put up for sale online. If legitimate, the massive data breach can result in phone swapping or other identity fraud activities, which can impact a Chinese user's social credit scoring.Hackers claiming to have access to databases containing the data had offered the information for sale on an online forum, which specialised in the…