Pair jailed over SMS phishing scam
Two men – aged 51 and 37 – have been sentenced to prison time for orchestrating an SMS scam that targeted millions of Australian mobile numbers with millions of phishing messages.
The men, from Sydney, were initially arrested in September 2020 after raids on their homes.
Several simboxes – devices to enable multiple messages from multiple phone numbers to be sent quickly – were seized during the search warrants, as were thousands of dollars in cash, fake drivers’ licenses and several mobile phones.
AFP commander cybercrime Operations, Chris Goldsmid said international and domestic syndicates continued to target Australians with spoofed phone numbers and cautioned members of the public against clicking on links from unknown numbers.
“Some of these syndicates are professional groups and the messages can look like they’re coming from legitimate numbers associated with financial institutions,” he said.
“If you receive a message out of the blue asking you to follow a link, the safest thing to do is delete the message and contact your financial institution directly.”
What do you do when you receive a suspicious text message?
Text messages are coming thick and fast just now. Messages from Amazon whom I never order from, delivery companies who cant deliver my order which is probably due to it being non existant, anti virus software that I don't even own, the Post Office are getting in on the act informing me that they can't deliver a parcel ( that one I believe cause they cant even deliver a letter). They are all relegated to the dustbin button!