There's a new kind of "hacking" in town, and it's been around for a little while. It's called "Smishing". Smishing is similar to fishing, except for instead of using e-mail, it's using SMS text messages to fish for information to be used against you.
I'm sure we have all received these from one time to another. The most important thing is NOT to click the link.
And if the message instructs you to contact a phone number, validate the information first.
In this day and age, criminals both professional and unprofessional alike, are getting much better at scamming us for our money, identities, and more. Would you like to protect yourself from these and other scams, and not only protecting yourself, but your family as well. This IDShield program is not just something off the street, it's led by Kroll, the world's leading company in ID theft consulting and restoration. If you want some more information on the IDShield protection and what it can do, you can go here and click on "IDShield Plans". In this time and age I strongly recommend an identity theft protection plan for yourself and your family. I personally love the peace of mind it offers both myself and my family.
NOTE This article written below was taken from nbcnews.com and is not authored by myself.
How Cyber Criminals are Targeting You Through Text Message
Cyber criminals are increasingly targeting victims through a text message scam called "smishing" that can infect your smartphone and let thieves steal your personal information.
That means social security numbers, addresses, and even your credit card information can all be vulnerable through a simple, unassuming text message you receive.
"It may say something like, $500 was just withdrawn from your bank account, did you do it? If not, call this phone number," Pierson Clair, senior director of cyber security and investigations at Kroll, told NBC News. "There are millions of these text messages sent out every single day targeting everybody from small children to grandmothers and everybody in between."
Hackers usually send the smishing messages with a link or phone number. If you call or click, they'll then be able to harvest more data. Americans lost $1.3 billion to cyber crime in 2016, according to the FBI. That number is expected to rise as criminals get craftier and go after unsuspecting victims in new ways.