Hackers breach texting services

[erek]

"Organizations that give people the option to receive alerts through text messages often hire companies like Mobile Commons, which are vetted by the telecommunications industry to operate in compliance with federal guidelines and have access to so-called short code phone numbers. Those numbers are five or six digits long and tightly regulated so they won’t be marked as spam when they rapidly send bursts of hundreds of thousands or millions of texts.
In an email sent to messaging platforms Thursday and viewed by NBC News, the U.S. Short Code Registry, an industry nonprofit that maintains those codes in the U.S., said that the industry is under increased attack from hackers.
“Our monitoring teams have detected a notable increase in attempts by unauthorized actors to initiate account takeovers (ATOs) and originate unwanted or illegal text messages using Short Codes,” the email said. It also encouraged those companies to take basic steps to protect their cybersecurity. The Short Code Registry did not respond to a request for comment.
While breaking into Mobile Commons could have allowed the hackers to send messages designed to cause mass panic, they instead sent variations of a routine scam.
NBC News reviewed scam messages sent to people who received them from numbers associated with three Mobile Commons customers: New York state, the charity Catholic Relief Services and the political organizing group Fight for a Union, which helped promote the “No Kings” protests. All three scam texts referenced nonexistent transactions, urging users to call the same 888 number that appears to have been linked to the scam. That number is now disconnected."

Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/securi...age-fake-transaction-call-new-york-rcna243349

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

The fаct thаt people still click links from emаils or cаll numbers in text messаges is so goddаmn frustrаting.

I wish there were а requirement from аll emаil аnd phone providers to block аll messаges thаt hаve numbers or links in them. There is no time аnyone should ever be clicking or cаlling them.

We need to pound it into everyone's skulls thаt no mаtter how legitimаte а messаge looks, аlwаys аlwаys аlwаys log in by going to the web pаge mаnuаlly, or cаll by finding the number on the proper webpаge.

How fucking difficult cаn thаt be? Treаt links аnd numbers in emаils аs if they аren't there.

For shits and giggles I replaced all the lower case a's in this post above this line with the Cyrillic character "а" (U+0430) instead of the latin lower case "a" (U+0060)

Did you notice before reading the line above? Be honest.

Sometimes in certain fonts you can catch that things are off through subtle spacing or font rendering differences, but in many fonts (like this one) there is no apparent difference at all. The ONLY way to be sure to not fall for something like this is to just not click links in emails or tech messages even when they DO look legitimate, instead of being smug and thinking you can catch anything malicious because you are vigilant.

 

[Ranulfo]

But...but...I was told I had to give various companies a txt capable number so they could protect me from phone spam!