Fake text messages impersonating well-known courier companies have risen rapidly in recent weeks, with scammers expected to take advantage of the upcoming Black Friday retail frenzy.
Cybersecurity firm Proofpoint reports that there has been a recent surge in SMS scams (known as “text scams”) that pretend to be from legitimate delivery companies, notably dhl and DPD.
In the fourth quarter of 2020, Proofpoint found that fraudulent courier messages accounted for 16% of all SMS scams, compared to 56% in the same period in 2021. Overall, phishing attacks in the UK have increased by 105% in just one year, so this year’s Black Friday event may face even more threats.
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The text messages usually involve informing the victim that their “package” cannot be delivered and needs to be rescheduled for delivery, or that the package is being held and a fee will be charged for its release.
The message contained a link that, when clicked, took the victim to a phishing page – a fake version of the real delivery company’s website – where cybercriminals could do damage, such as installing malware, or asking victims to enter their bank accounts that they then stole Card details.
This scam can be very effective because people usually order in large quantities around Black Friday and the holidays and don’t necessarily know which delivery company they will use. Courier companies also often send legitimate short-form text messages to customers, making it difficult to tell the real from the fake.
However, one telltale sign is looking at web links: as shown, they often contain strange characters or words, and are not as straightforward as their legal counterparts, such as ‘[]’. There is no reason for a legitimate website to have such characters.
Unsurprisingly, many scams have already started happening ahead of Black Friday. Bitdefender found Current Popular Phishing Scams These include those offering discounts on designer merchandise, fake gift cards from popular stores, and fake surveys promising the latest Android phone upon completion.
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