Generally, once a day, Digvijay Kosamia looks at his cellphone to check the latest text he’s received, only to find a frustrating message from a strange number. Most of the time it’s a notification that is apparently from Canada Post about a package that Kosamia didn’t order. Other times, the message informs him that a major bank has frozen his card, complete with the first four digits of the account in question—all he has to do to unlock the card is follow a mysterious URL.
Kosamia has experienced getting up to 15 or 20 spam texts a week, which is uncommon in Canada. Many say they’re increasingly inundated with spam and fake texts. The organizations tasked with monitoring spam try and enforce laws against them say the numbers back up that common perception. Messages that involve phishing that is where a scammer tries many ways to trick the recipient into clicking a malicious link, downloading malware, or sharing sensitive informationareon the rise.
Last year according to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Center, 5,395 text messages were reported. Almost $24 million was lost to fraud where a text message was the original method of contact last year, says the anti-fraud center spokesman Jeff Horncastle. Canada’s telecommunications regulator has also noticed more scams involving text messages. In the six months leading up to March 31 of this year, the National Spam Reporting Centre got 4,705 complaints through its online form. About a fifth of the complaints were mainly about text messages. According to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), around 45 percent of those text-related reports were phishing messages and 13 percent were other scams. It said reports have increased partly because of the prevalence of employment scams, which start with text messages promising high pay for a few hours of work per week.
Those often develop into more serious threats, says Horncastle. He described a frequent scenario where victims, after making a little money, are eventually asked to put in some of their funds to gain the favor of the employer. The CRTC noted recipients may also unknowingly become a mule, that is on behalf of a scammer, when someone transfers illegally acquired money or goods.
In addition to artificial intelligence playing a role in making spam texts seem more personal, Horncastle says that victims often fall for these schemes because the initial message comes with an attached logo of a prominent organization, where the sender claims to be from. If they claim to be a specific financial institution, they will include the first four digits of the client’s card number. A lot of people don’t understand that those first four to six numbers are the same with a specific financial institution.
The Canadian Telecommunication Association says that those receiving an unexpected text message alleging to be from their bank, law enforcement, or a government agency should never give their personal information. Instead, they suggest calling the relevant institution using the contact information on their website to determine if the message is genuine.
The association also informs everyone that if they receive a text message that they think might be fraudulent, then they should forward it to 7726 (SPAM), which will alert their cellular provider to open an investigation into the message itself. Wireless providers continue to invest in developing and deploying measures to lessen unwanted text messages, such as the use of scanning and filtering software, while also ensuring consumers still receive the text messages that are important to them, says CTA spokesman Nick Kyonka.
Pierre-Luc Denis, director of electronic commerce enforcement for the CRTC, said the regulator is working with telecom companies to allow them to block certain types of traffic deemed detrimental to customers. It’s one way how the CRTC is trying to be proactive as text message scams evolve. Scammers are always trying to stay one step ahead, says Denis.
The technical landscape evolves extremely fast, and once a specific technique is either overused or addressed, then you will come across a switch to a different type of scam. Denis described the increase in such incidents as an international trend, which the CRTC checks with its counterparts in other countries to keep updated on emerging scams that could find their way to Canada.
