Alert! Latest Text Scam will gorge you out of your money and data.

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Swindlers have come across a way to “spoof” numbers that enables them to sniff out texts from valid senders and make it appear as though a bank or other business is genuinely getting in touch.

All Mobile Users have been alerted as cybercriminals found a new way to breach confidential data and money. To spread fraud texts, adversaries injected those messages into the legitimate ones which have been coming from banks & firms.

Senior Researcher Faye Lipson

Moreover, this trick has become one of the most convincing ways for fraudsters.

The Cyberscam came into the spotlight after a man got targeted by a continuous campaign of scam texts, & phone calls from Lloyd Bank.

According to Chronicle Live Reports,

The victim saw a strange message at the end of a chain of official messages from his bank.

The message notified him that he would shortly receive a notification requesting him to confirm activity on his account, and quite a bit later, a text from a different number said his bank had rejected a £110 Amazon purchase.

The adversary wanted that the victim must claim that he had attempted the Amazon Payment. Otherwise, Lloyds would “decline future card payments.”

The victim found out that the message was fraudulent because he saw 4 digits at the end of a card number that was not his. After that, he made a call to his bank’s fraud toll-free number, which he got from its website.

He confirmed that the call was no fraud issues related to his account. The victim was lucky enough not to lose any money in the process. However, he still received 7 calls from a number with the starting digit 0333 on his mobile and landline. He ignored the calls.

Victim

“I’m frightened that the scammers had both my numbers, knew I was with Lloyds, and could also send texts appearing to be from Lloyds.” Criminals use online “spoofing” services to send text messages over the internet, using short names such as “Lloyds Bank.”

The phone immediately groups the bogus message with any other messages with the same short name when it is received.

Ms. Lipson

“This means we must treat all messages claiming to be from banks or other trusted bodies with a degree of skepticism. “It’s common for scammers to have some prior knowledge of us – such as where we bank – gleaned from data breaches and then traded on murkier sections of the internet.

Due to such a process, it’s not impossible that we won’t lose a huge amount of our data continuously.

“That’s why, when we’re asked for our money or personal information, we should always take five minutes and think about how to verify what we’ve been told, using trusted contact details – such as the helpline number on the back of your card.”

Lloyd Bank issued an alert that victims may be cautious of such messages. Also, it said that the bank never asks clients to share their personal account information, such as

User ID,
Password & Memorable Data,
Personal Security Number for Telephone Banking,
PIN Code,
Card Expiry Date.

Moreover, it would not ask for money in any way. Earlier, people also got notified that several victims were being victimized by the “Hi Mum” message scam. Victims may find that they got short on thousands of pounds.

An owner also reported to the BBC Channel that he had lost £3,000+ after handing cash to the cybercriminal.

Jan (fictitious name)

Received a message saying: “Hey mum, I am texting you on my friend’s phone as my phone is broken”.

After this, she got a message involving money problems from the fraudster claiming to be the son of the victim to sort out some problems at hand.

She got to know about the fraud message when she was duped after sending the money to the fraudulent ones and confirming the payment by dropping a message to her son.

Jan, BBC Money Box

“I was just so gutted, I was so, so, so upset that someone could do this to me.”

It was confirmed that she was not the only one being duped in the cyberattack. A list has shown that 1200+ people got duped of a total of £1.5 million in a cybercrime event in 2022.

Craig Mullish, Detective Chief Inspector, London Police

“If you receive a message like this from a friend or family member, don’t send any money until you’ve had a chance to call them and confirm their identity. Taking a moment to stop and think before parting with your money or information could keep you safe.”

If you think that you might have been doomed in this event, you should contact your bank first, then report it to the police via Action Fraud.