Communications of the ACM
Spam Texts From Your Own Number? 'Bad Actors' Sent Them, Verizon Says
Verizon said it believed several thousand of its customers had received the spam texts as part of a broader scheme affecting major wireless carriers.
Credit: Mark Lennihan/Associated Press
The wireless carrier Verizon blamed "bad actors" on Wednesday for thousands of spam text messages recently received by its customers and said it was working with federal law enforcement agencies to try to identify the source.
The telecom giant confirmed in a statement on Wednesday that its customers had been targeted by the rogue texts offering them a free gift, which were reported on Monday by The Verge, a technology news website. Some users had reported being forwarded to Russian state media sites when they clicked on links in the texts, but Verizon was treating the texts as a more typical phishing scheme aimed at defrauding consumers.
"As part of a recent fraud scheme, bad actors have been sending text messages to some Verizon customers which appear to come from the customers' own number," the statement said. "Our company has significantly curtailed this current activity, but virtually all wireless providers have faced similar fraudulent activity in recent months."
From The New York Times
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