SMS Phishing and Mitigation Approaches

Smishing is an attack targeted to mobile devices in which the attacker sends text messages containing malicious links, phone numbers or E-Mail IDs to the victim and the attacker aims to steal sensitive user data like bank account details, passwords, user credentials, credit card details, etc through this message. Through this message, the attacker prompts the user to click on the link or contact the phone number or E-mail ID provided in the SMS. In this paper, we have discussed various mobile smishing attacks. We have also suggested various best policies which can be followed by the user to mitigate the smishing attacks. In addition to this, various techniques that are useful in mitigating and identifying smishing messages are also discussed. Finally, we gave an overview of methodologies proposed by other researchers in this field to differentiate smishing messages from legitimate ones. This paper would enable users to be more careful while clicking on the links provided in the SMS for downloading and installing apps and filling up fake user interfaces. Also, this paper would be a great contribution to the study on how to identify mobile smishing attacks.