Ethics Citation Program Smishing – What Is It and What Can We do About It?
- Details
- Category: MLS Tech Blog
- Published: March 23, 2021
Smishing Defined
As more and more business communication – especially Real Estate business is conducted via text messaging (SMS), it’s now more important than ever before to understand what Smishing is and what can be done about it.
Smishing is a type of phishing whereby someone uses SMS to try to trick you into giving them private information, or tries to defraud you in some other way – like convincing you to purchase gift cards. They may claim to have spotted “suspicious activity on your account”, or they could send you an SMS that look like this:
Smishing is essentially any form of phishing that is conducted via SMS.
How to protect yourself
- Be on the lookout for suspicious text messages from numbers you don’t recognize.
- DON’T CLICK links sent to you by unverified senders – the sender may be trying to install malware on your device.
- Call back the sender at a number you know for them or independently verify – like looking up their contact info on hicentral.com’s handy REALTOR tool, or their website.
- You may want to block messages from unknown senders, or with a call blocking app.
- Copy the message and send it to the FTC’s Spam prevention team at 7726 (SPAM)
Additional links for more information
“How to Recognize and Report SPAM Text Messages” from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)
https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/how-recognize-and-report-spam-text-messages
"What is Smishing" Tech Talk from IDG
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOZGQeG8avQ
“What is Smishing” from Norton – the antivirus and security company.
https://us.norton.com/internetsecurity-emerging-threats-what-is-smishing.html
