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Swindlers are using fake-friendly text messages to try to persuade older adults to give up credit card numbers or bank account passwords
Maria-Kristina Hayden was visiting with her 70-year-old father when he received a text message on his phone. He seemed puzzled. "The text message was from an unknown number, and it said, 'Hey, do you want to golf later this week?'" says Hayden. "My dad is a golfer, and he has many friends that he golfs with throughout the month. But he didn't recognize the number."
Fortunately, Hayden is the founder of OUTFOXM, a Dallas-based cyber response company that helps individuals and organizations prevent cyberattacks. She checked her father's phone to confirm that it was not a number that was saved in his contacts list. It wasn't listed, and after a few more questions, her father said, "This is probably a scam. Is this what you are trying to tell me?"
The scam is called smishing, a mashup of SMS and phishing. SMS is the abbreviation of short message service, or texting. Phishing involves thieves communicating with strangers — at first using email, now via texts — in the hope of persuading them to share confidential financial information, such as credit card numbers or bank account passwords.
"Whenever someone is smishing, their key goal is to gain your trust — and sometimes, they are very convincing."
"SMS phishing, or smishing, is a variant of the kind of phishing we've been hearing about for years," says Hayden. "But SMS phishing doesn't arrive through email. It arrives on your phone. That could be a text message, a WhatsApp or a Signal message, or any kind of messaging app that you use on your phone in a text-like fashion."
The goal of smishing is the same as phishing: to induce recipients to reveal personal information. One example is a bank impersonation scheme. Fraudsters pretend to be your bank by mimicking the legitimate outreach banks do to alert customers about potentially fraudulent activity on their account, explains Michael Steinbach, Head of Global Fraud Prevention at Citi.
"This often starts with a text notifying you of potential fraud on your account. Once you (the victim) are engaged, the fraudster claims that they are trying to protect your money and that they want to help you reverse the fraud on your account," says Steinbach. "Whenever someone is smishing, their key goal is to gain your trust — and sometimes, they are very convincing."
Smishing messages may promise free gift cards or prizes, claim to pay off your student loans or other debts, or offer a credit card with low or no interest. "They will try to trick us emotionally and get us to override our natural skepticism," says Hayden. "In my father's case, they may have gotten my father's number from a golf magazine he subscribes to, and they know people on the list will respond to golf-related messages."
A smishing message may suggest the link is directed to a credit card company website or other business, but the scammers often make small changes in the website address or use link-shortener software so the address is unrecognizable. The link is used as a method to download malicious software to the victim's computer or to gather personal information.
The smisher may ask the person to call a specific number instead of including a link. Then the caller is asked to provide sensitive data over the phone.
Steinbach says there are a few red flags to look out for to avoid falling victim to a scam:
Perhaps you have clicked on one of the links in a text message or gave information to someone and have second thoughts. Here are some things you can do:
Here are some tips to avoid falling victim to a smishing scam:
Steinbach says that caregivers should take an active role in educating and supporting older adults on how best to protect and monitor their personal information:

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