Latest news with #textscams
Yahoo
20-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
As The Labor Market Gets Rockier, Job Offer Scams Are On The Rise Duping Millennials And Gen Zers
Consumers reported losing $470 million to text message scams in 2024, the Federal Trade Commission reports. The most common text message scam was fake package delivery, followed by bogus job opportunities. While these job opportunity scams can vary widely, they most often look like purported recruiters reaching out about positions available at well-known, well-respected companies. Scammers will then ask for identifying information, like social security numbers or driver's license details, in order to solidify the offer. Don't Miss: Maker of the $60,000 foldable home has 3 factory buildings, 600+ houses built, and big plans to solve housing — Deloitte's fastest-growing software company partners with Amazon, Walmart & Target – Many are rushing to 'We are definitely seeing both a growth in reported losses to text scams and also a growth in reported losses to job scams,' Kati Daffan, an attorney for the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, told Business Insider. 'Reported losses to job scams increased more than three times between 2020 and 2023.' Experts are now warning the outlet that these text message job scams could get worse. As the labor market gets rockier, Americans feel more stress surrounding their financial positions, and people are increasingly looking for remote work options they become easier targets, Business Insider reports. Meanwhile, AI is making the scams easier to run and lending them an air of authenticity that makes them more believable. 'It's likely that as unemployment increases and more people are worried about the economic uncertainty, if the scams aren't necessarily increasing, the likelihood that people might fall for them will be,' Selena Larson, a threat researcher at cybersecurity company Proofpoint, told Business Insider. Trending: Maximize saving for your retirement and cut down on taxes: . Identity Theft Resource Center CEO Eva Velasquez explained to Business Insider that the scams are not only lucrative for those behind them because they can "capture not only your data but often your money," but also because they require relatively little effort from the scammers. The scammers are asking for information that would be par for the course in a real hiring process, so it doesn't take much convincing for people to hand it over. '[The scam] relies on this concept of social engineering and the hackers being very compelling. They make you feel something, they make you feel excited,' Larson told Business Insider. 'They make you feel like you want to be a part of this ecosystem, that this job is a great opportunity that you don't want to lose.' Surprisingly, it's not older generations that are the most likely to fall for these scams, Business Insider reports. Instead, it's millennials and Gen Zers who are used to conducting much of their life digitally.'You look at the Gen Zs and the younger millennials and they just click, click, click, click, click, click,' Alex Quilici, the CEO of YouMail, a service that helps block scam texts and calls, told Business Insider. At this point, there is no clear path for cracking down on these scams, so it's up to the individual consumer to protect themselves. Experts told Business Insider that the best ways to do this are by slowing down when considering these offers, never clicking on links included in suspicious text messages or e-mails, and refusing to send money to unknown entities. 'One of the reasons that job scams are flourishing is that many people do want to work extra and make extra income, and they're looking for an opportunity to do that,' Daffan says. 'And scammers know that, and so they know there's a big market out there if they can have a convincing job scam. And, unfortunately, that is the case.' Read Next:Peter Thiel turned $1,700 into $5 billion—now accredited investors are eyeing this software company with similar breakout potential. Learn how you can Image: Shutterstock Up Next: Transform your trading with Benzinga Edge's one-of-a-kind market trade ideas and tools. Click now to access unique insights that can set you ahead in today's competitive market. Get the latest stock analysis from Benzinga? APPLE (AAPL): Free Stock Analysis Report TESLA (TSLA): Free Stock Analysis Report This article As The Labor Market Gets Rockier, Job Offer Scams Are On The Rise Duping Millennials And Gen Zers originally appeared on © 2025 Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Forbes
20-06-2025
- Forbes
FBI Warning—All Smartphone Users Must Delete These Messages
The threat is worse than the headlines suggest. A raft of news stories this week (1,2,3) report on the FBI warning 150 million Apple users to delete texts on their iPhones. Unfortunately the reality is even worse than those headlines suggest. Here's what you need to know and what you should do. Right now, your cell phone is vulnerable to an ongoing attack that will come to you by way of text messages warning of dire consequences if you don't respond right away. Text messages that include links to pay outstanding bills or fines. All of this is made up, of course, but you pay nonetheless because you're worried — that's the idea. These messages include unpaid tolls and newer DMV traffic offenses, but will soon widen the net to mimic texts from your bank or credit card company. It's against this backdrop that we have seen headlines urging America's iPhone users specifically to delete the latest raft of DMV texts as soon as they're received. The malicious texts are sent courtesy of organized Chinese criminal gangs that operate beyond the reach of U.S. law enforcement. They harness countless phone numbers from multiple countries and domains from multiple providers. Despite network filtering and iOS and Android spam detection, the tidal wave of texts seemingly can't be stopped. Google has confirmed new AI-powered scam detection on its phones, and we await to see if this filters the threat or can be worked around. The FBI's warning to delete all these co-called smishing texts came in an advisory last year, issued in the wake of the original unpaid toll scam that has now swept across America from state to state. Any such texts, it said, should be deleted from phones. But that applies to iPhone and Android users — to all smartphone users. There are some iPhone specifics — the OCGs prefer iMessage to SMS, albeit they like RCS as well, and the texts often include instructions to 'Please reply with 'Y'' to get around iPhone's link blocking from unknown senders. But the the attack targets all users indiscriminately. As I reported a week ago, the FBI has confirmed it is now investigating the latest plague of DMV-themed texts, which is unsurprising. The volume of those texts in particular surged almost 800% in the first week of June alone, and has not slowed down since. A single bad actor armed with numbers and domains can send as many as '60,000,000 texts a per month, or 720,000,000 per year,' if that helps explain why there's almost no one in America who hasn't yet received these texts or knows someone who has. Whether it's an iPhone or an Android phone in your pocket, don't leave these texts undeleted and never ever click on any of these links.
Washington Post
04-06-2025
- General
- Washington Post
Have you received scam texts about an unpaid toll? You are not alone.
Text scams are the cockroaches of our digital lives — resilient and repulsive. With summer travel season starting and families hitting the road, I suspect many people will start seeing more scam toll and ticket text messages. On my phone, I have seen an increase in threats that I could face large penalties and even jail time. Others have been warned their vehicles could be impounded.
