How to Not Fall Prey to Smishing

(For their third video for the Teen Fact-Checking Network India, Season 2, Aarav Kanodia, Kaustav Medhi and Tooba Hasan decided to deep dive into smishing. Do note that this is a hypothetical situation mentioned to only explain the concept.)

Aarav details how he received an SMS from some company offering him an internship with a high salary. But here's a red flag! They asked him for his personal details.

And while he shouldn't have fallen prey to this, he sent his personal details and suddenly all the money in his bank account was gone.

What is Smishing?

Our teenager fell victim to Smishing, a phishing attack via SMS.

Phishing is a type of cyber crime where attackers impersonate legitimate organisations to trick people into sharing sensitive information, leading to financial loss and identity theft.

The Home Ministry in 2022 said 17,470 cyber fraud cases were registered and this number seems to be rising every year. So, we must be cautious! Watch out for both phishing and smishing via SMS.

Smishing messages often contain unrealistic promises, grammatical errors, typos, and suspicious links as compared to a legit SMS and is best avoided.

But what about the money lost? In such a case, reporting the fraudulent activity to the government’s cyber crime cell is the best solution.