Employees at a company are receiving unsolicited text messages on their corporate cell phones.

Smishing is a type of phishing attack which begins with an attacker sending a text message to an individual. The message contains social engineering tactics to convince the person to click on a malicious link or send sensitive information to the attacker. Criminals use smishing attacks for purposes like:

Learn login credentials to accounts via credential phishing

Discover private data like social security numbers

Send money to the attacker

Install malware on a phone

Establish trust before using other forms of contact like phone calls or emails

Attackers may pose as trusted sources like a government organization, a person you know, or your bank. And messages often come with manufactured urgency and time-sensitive threats. This can make it more difficult for a victim to notice a scam.

Phone numbers are easy to spoof with VoIP texting, where users can create a virtual number to send and receive texts. If a certain phone number is flagged for spam, criminals can simply recycle it and use a new one.