Smartphones are under attack — here’s what you do.
Republished on October 7 with a new report into the surge in text attacks on U.S. citizens, making America the global hotspot for such threats. Your smartphone is now at risk from a surge in malicious messages that easily bypass network defenses to attack devices.
You won’t realize you’ve been targeted until it’s too late, and Google warns Android users to change their settings to stop this.explains, which are “carried in a rucksack and which allow the scammers to intercept signals and send manipulated text messages.”warns these “cell-site simulators, also known as False Base Stations or Stingrays” trick phones into connecting, treating it as genuine cell site. This is a traditional surveillance/intercept technology that has been repurposed to push out high-volume scam texts, avoiding the defenses built into legitimate networks.“This method to inject messages entirely bypasses the carrier network,” Google says, “bypassing all the sophisticated network-based anti-spam and anti-fraud filters.” Google’s issued its advice last summer, but these attacks have continued and are now escalating. Most rely on smartphones connecting to 2G networks, which do not carry the same level of security and encryption as 5G, 4G and even 3G connections.“Downgrading the user’s connection to a legacy 2G protocol,” Google explains, “abuses the well known lack of mutual authentication in 2G and force connections to be unencrypted.” This enables a man-in-the-middle attack “to inject SMS payloads.” Mitigation for most of these attacks is simple. “Android 12 introduced a user option to disable 2G at the modem level, a feature first adopted by Pixel. This option, if used, completely mitigates the risk from SMS Blasters.”If you’re attacked by an SMS Blaster, you won’t realize the texts are any different to the ones you usually receive. But instead of targeting your number, these attacks target your location, “blasting” out SMS messages to all local devices, thousands at a time. This is one area where Android beats iPhone on the security front. There is no equivalent option to block 2G on Apple devices. Instead you’re reliant on the new spam filtering in iOS 26 and disabling links from unknown senders.does block 2G , but there we’re into sledgehammer-nut territory. That mode also locks down a raft of popular features, making your iPhone much more painful to use. It’s not recommended for everyday users. Meanwhile, a raft of new text warnings should serve as a timely reminder that the lures behind malicious SMS campaigns will be the same whether they’re sent over the regular network to your cell phone number or blasted out using a fake cell site.And those lures will jump on any compelling event to convince you the fake text is real and the dangerous link is something you need to click and click urgently. That’s very much the case with North Carolina’s Attorney General warning citizens “to be on alert for potential scams while the federal government remains shut down,” perWhether it’s a wildfire, a text deadline or a shutdown, or something more personal such a missed jury summons, the urgent tag is a telltale warning sign. “I think personally I’ve seen, text messages sent to me through my phone under the auspices of a make-believe state agency, to make it sound official,". “So I know that if I’m receiving them,” he says, the same will be true for “millions of New Yorkers.”, “between March and September 2025, the United States received nearly 37% of global spam, making it the world’s primary target. Within those emails, 45% of the global spam received by Americans was fraudulent or malicious.” And this is especially apparent when it comes to SMS messages."Bitdefender telemetry shows that 10% of US users received at least one SMS scam in the past two months." And while SMS Blaster warnings from Google and others should be taken. seriously, in reality you’re more likely to be targeted by an attacker who has your number. The difference now is that it won’t just be your number they use — it will be a raft of other personal details scraped from social media and elsewhere — often using AI — that can be harnessed to increase the likelihood you fall victim to an attack.“What makes SMS scams in the United States particularly dangerous is their advanced level of personalization and sophistication. While scams in Europe or Canada often rely on obvious brand impersonation and straightforward attempts to steal card details, campaigns in the United States frequently mimic legitimate aggressive marketing tactics so convincingly that even cautious users may struggle to tell the difference.” This includes “randomized domains” and “even the recipient’s name in the text message to capture attention, blurring the line between a real promotion and attempted fraud.” The general tricks still apply — such as a sense of urgency and alarm and a call to action, but now with you name and other details front and center." This evolution, Bitdefender says, “makes SMS scams targeting American consumers uniquely deceptive and harder to detect.” The usual rules still apply, though. It doesn’t matter what personal details are in a text, if you don’t know or can’t verify the sender, do not engage. If there’s an suspicion it might be a scam, it’s almost always a scam.
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