{"id":18755,"date":"2022-04-13T07:10:16","date_gmt":"2022-04-13T15:10:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2022\/04\/13\/news-12488\/"},"modified":"2022-04-13T07:10:16","modified_gmt":"2022-04-13T15:10:16","slug":"news-12488","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2022\/04\/13\/news-12488\/","title":{"rendered":"SMS group spam promises free gifts in return for bill payment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Credit to Author: Christopher Boyd| Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2022 15:04:14 +0000<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>We\u2019re seeing lots of examples of peculiar SMS messages sent to random groups of people. Most of these messages promise free gifts and\/or offers after having paid bills. Nobody has asked for these texts, and they\u2019re not being sent by providers of any services. What\u2019s going on?<\/p>\n<h2>The set up<\/h2>\n<p>Most of the messages we\u2019ve seen, and indeed received ourselves, are identical to the below example:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p><em>Free Msg: your bill is paid for March. Thanks, here\u2019s a little gift for you [URL removed]<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"55712\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/scams\/2022\/04\/sms-group-spam-promises-free-gifts-in-return-for-bill-payment\/attachment\/tfu980fc\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/tfu980fC.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"579,825\" data-comments-opened=\"0\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"tfu980fC\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/tfu980fC-211x300.jpg\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/tfu980fC-421x600.jpg\" width=\"421\" height=\"600\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/tfu980fC-421x600.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-55712\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/tfu980fC-421x600.jpg 421w, https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/tfu980fC-211x300.jpg 211w, https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/tfu980fC.jpg 579w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 421px) 100vw, 421px\" \/><figcaption><em>Spam messaging<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<h2>Where do the links go?<\/h2>\n<p>A very good question. Clicking any of the links while on desktop typically results in a site failing to load error. Most likely, they\u2019re checking the user agent of your browser to ensure you\u2019re on mobile when hitting the link.<\/p>\n<p>On mobile, you\u2019re bounced through a secondary URL before landing on a 404 error on Facebook or Twitter. Despite a piece of this website daisy-chain being lost to the void, the texts are still coming and it\u2019s probably child\u2019s play to correct the broken landing pages to something functional. As a result, we can\u2019t say for sure what the final destination is.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>A friend of mine mentioned they ended up on some sort of airpod\/free mobile accessories offer site from a similar group message not so long ago, so that\u2019s one possibility. What we can say is that you should definitely avoid clicking these links should you receive one. We simply don\u2019t know where you\u2019ll end up, and you can <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/cybercrime\/2015\/08\/watch-out-for-costly-mobile-ads\/\">very easily end up out of pocket<\/a> with one mis-click.<\/p>\n<h2>Tips to avoid this SMS group spam<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>A lot of people are sending \u201cSTOP\u201d messages in response to these messages. Unfortunately this won\u2019t work, and you\u2019re not going to opt-out of anything in this scenario.<\/li>\n<li>Blocking the sender number helps, but they\u2019re coming from several numbers one after the other. If you\u2019ve received one, sadly you should probably expect more. Remember to report every single one which comes your way.<\/li>\n<li>It can be tricky generally to block messages when dropped into a random group. Depending on phone\/app, you should be able to tap three dots (or similar) and report the spamming number from there. This may also result in blocking all numbers in the group by default, which means you won\u2019t receive dozens of unsubscribe style messages all day long from 19 other people.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Remember: If in doubt, visit your provider\u2019s website and see first-hand if they\u2019re offering up freebies for payment. The likelihood is they\u2019re not, but it\u2019s still better than clicking any of the above to find out.<\/p>\n<p>The post <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/scams\/2022\/04\/sms-group-spam-promises-free-gifts-in-return-for-bill-payment\/\">SMS group spam promises free gifts in return for bill payment<\/a> appeared first on <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\">Malwarebytes Labs<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/scams\/2022\/04\/sms-group-spam-promises-free-gifts-in-return-for-bill-payment\/\" target=\"bwo\" >https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/feed\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Credit to Author: Christopher Boyd| Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2022 15:04:14 +0000<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>We take a look at SMS group spam promising free gifts in return for having paid your bill for the month of March.<\/p>\n<p>The post <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/scams\/2022\/04\/sms-group-spam-promises-free-gifts-in-return-for-bill-payment\/\">SMS group spam promises free gifts in return for bill payment<\/a> appeared first on <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\">Malwarebytes Labs<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[10488,10378],"tags":[8560,25695,10554,10574,11706,10518],"class_list":["post-18755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-malwarebytes","category-security","tag-bills","tag-freebies","tag-mobile","tag-scams","tag-sms","tag-spam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18755\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}