Scams have their own vocabulary: phishing, bluesnarfing, the emergence of AI in cybersecurity cases. And now we add smishing campaigns. Recently, the Organization of Consumers and Users (OCU) has denounced a large number of users receiving text messages, supposedly from their banks.
The problem is that it is not the bank that sends these SMS, it is a smishing campaign (people are tricked into disclosing personal or financial information by sending them text messages (SMS) that include fraudulent links). With this information cybercriminals can get our money.
The latest messages are impersonating Banco Sabadell, warning of a problem with the card. The message has a link that It leads to a supposed page of this bank, but it is false. There we are asked for our data (such as a document and even passwords) and with this we can now control our cards or bank account.
Many people fall for this scam because the message seeks to create concern or the sensation of suspicious movements in the account: a card has been blocked, there is an operation in another country or a login from an unknown device. Obviously, that worries us and we try to resolve it as soon as possible. And that's when we click on the link.
According to the OCU, the scam affects clients of Banco Sabadell, but also mentions other entities such as ING, ABANCA, Bankinter, Laboral Kutxa, BBVA, Banco Santander, Caja Sur, CaixaBank, Deutsche Bank.
What should we do? In case we receive this message, the first thing is Do not open the link or provide personal data by any other means. We block the number so that they cannot contact us (this is almost anecdotal, they probably have hundreds of numbers) and we try to communicate directly with our bank to alert them of the problem.
In the event that we have opened the link, we call the bank directly by phone and explain what has happened. It is important to make it as personal as possible to avoid potential cybersecurity leaks. It is also advisable to regularly check our account to see if there were any suspicious or unknown movements. And we have to remember that neither the banks, nor the Treasury or the town councils will ask us for our data via SMS.