What is Smishing? USPS issues warning to not click link

You check your phone and there’s a text message with an unfamiliar web link that indicates a U.S. Postal Service delivery requires you to respond.

What should you do? Don’t click – it’s likely you’re a smishing target.

Smishing is a form of phishing – sending fraudulent emails or other messages to try and get personal information – that involves a text message or phone number, according to the U.S. Postal Service.

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Targets will typically receive a deceptive text message intended to lure them into providing personal or financial information, such as banking or credit card data. The scammers often attempt to disguise themselves as a government agency, like the postal service, bank or other company with the goal of receiving personally identifiable information like account usernames and passwords, Social Security numbers, date of birth, credit and debit card numbers, personal identification numbers or other sensitive information.

The texts aren’t legitimate and should be reported and deleted.

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USPS does offer free tools to track specific packages but you have to register for it online or initiate a message and provide a text number. You won’t get an unsolicited text message or email and if you do ask for tracking and provide a tracking number, a legitimate message won’t contain a link.

What to do if you get a smishing message

If you’ve received a USPS-related smishing message, send it to spam@uspis.gov.

You can do that safely by following these steps:

• Without clicking on the web link, copy the body of the suspicious text message and paste it into a new email.
• Provide your name in the email, and also attach a screenshot of the text message showing the phone number of the sender and the date sent.
• Include any relevant details in your email, for example: if you clicked the link, if you lost money, if you provided any personal information, or if you experienced any impacts to your credit or person.
• The Postal Inspection Service will contact you if more information is needed.
• Forward the smishing/text message to 7726 (this will assist with reporting the scam phone number).

If the message isn’t USPS-related, you can:

• Forward message 7726.
• The Federal Trade Commission at ftc.gov/complaint.
• The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Internet Crime Complaint Center at https://www.ic3.gov/complaint

This post was originally published on this site