CRTC warns Canadians of rising text message scams • iPhone Blog in Canada

Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) wants Canadians to beware of scam text messages that could be part of phishing campaigns — reports World News.

Canada’s broadcasting and telecommunications regulator said on Thursday that 83% of phishing messages reported to its spam reporting cell between July and September were sent by text message. A CRTC spokesperson noted that while email continues to be the predominant medium for spam, “there seems to be a shift in the category of phishing messages.”

Between Jan. 1 and Oct. 18, the CRTC’s spam reporting center received 2,157 spam reports, the spokesperson said. By comparison, the department received 4,050 spam reports and 32,826 unsolicited call complaints during the same period.

“Of all spam text messages submitted to the Spam Reporting Center, approximately 54% are phishing, 18% are unknown (insufficient information was provided in the complaint), 17% are commercial and marketing messages from affiliation, and 5% are other forms of scams,” the CRTC spokesperson said.

Meanwhile, the Canadian Anti-Fraud Center reported 5,136 phishing text messages, 2,321 phishing emails and 17,078 fraudulent phone calls from January 1 to October 20.

Phishing messages are designed to trick recipients into personal (and often sensitive) information, usually by tricking them into clicking on a dubious link. The most common types of text messages are those that impersonate large or well-known companies like telecom operators and target their customers.

For example, some scammers launched a fraudulent campaign to extract money from Rogers customers after the telecom giant announced it would compensate customers for a nationwide network outage in July.

The CRTC also shared ways for Canadians to spot and avoid spam messages. According to the telecommunications watchdog, Canadians should watch out for the following red flags in the texts they receive:

• Request sensitive information
• Impersonate people or businesses you know
• Spelling and grammatical errors
• Asking for money in advance
• Use scare tactics or threats of violence
• Proposals that seem too good to be true

Although phishing messages are statistically more effective against older or less informed people, they become so sophisticated that virtually anyone could fall in love with them.

“Spam often uses language designed to induce fear. For example, if a message says your account will be deleted if you don’t respond, it’s probably spam,” the CRTC spokesperson said.

“If the text offers prizes or money, or says you’ve won a trip, beware. Do not provide personal information or click any buttons in the text message to claim a prize.

The CRTC’s own chairman, Ian Scott, has already had his email spoofed. The perpetrators were able to impersonate Scott and trick his underlings into buying and sending gift cards worth thousands of dollars.

Earlier this month, the CRTC also confirmed that the regulator’s employees had been targeted by phishing campaigns in the past.

“Although this is not our largest category of complaints by volume, we are concerned about the complaints we received this summer and fall relating to the extortion of text messages containing threats of violence (including death threats),” the CRTC spokesperson added.

“An increase in this type of violent text message has also been observed by partner agencies.”