The US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) warns citizens that the number of text message phishing attacks impersonating the tax office has skyrocketed in recent times .
"So far in 2022, the IRS has identified and flagged thousands of fraudulent domains linked to multiple MMS/SMS/text (known as smishing) scams targeting taxpayers," the IRS said in a statement. .
"In recent months, and especially in recent weeks, IRS-related smishing has increased exponentially."
industrial scale
The premise of such scams is simple: a threat actor will obtain a US citizen's phone number, usually on the black market, and compose an SMS message claiming that the sender is the IRS and that the recipient has unpaid bills, bank accounts frozen, possible legal issues, or the like. The same SMS message will also contain a hyperlink, inviting the victim to click and review the "allegations" or resolve the issue entirely.
The link takes the victim to a landing page specially designed to look exactly like pages of different banks or the like. There, the victim is tricked into sharing sensitive information, such as personally identifiable data or payment information.
“This is phishing on an industrial scale, so thousands of people are at risk of receiving these fraudulent messages,” IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig was quoted as saying by the publication.
"In recent months, the IRS has reported several large-scale smishing campaigns that have delivered thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of IRS-themed messages within hours or days, far exceeding previous levels of activity."
This is not the first time a threat actor has impersonated US government agencies in phishing attacks. Last July, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was forced to issue a similar warning, informing thousands of Americans that someone was posing as the FCC and seeking their personal information.
As with emails from unknown senders, users should be very careful when receiving text messages from people they don't know, especially if those messages contain links and a sense of urgency.
Via: BleepingComputer (Opens in a new tab)