CICC: Fraudulent SMS creep into legitimate message thread

THE Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center (CICC) is alerting the public of a new short message service (SMS) or text scam that allows fraudulent messages to ‘creep’ into legitimate message threads, making it difficult for account holders to identify between a legitimate service and a scam.

Fraudulent messages usually contain links to a fake site that capture the account holders’ details, including the One Time Password or OTP and other personal details.

CICC Executive Director Alexander K. Ramos said that his office has been receiving complaints related to this new text scam from   GCash and  Maya account holders. 

“We are seeing more and more scam text inserting itself into legitimate Gcash or Maya SMS,” he said. 

“We are appealing to the public to be more vigilant and never click links sent through text messages. We should always be  suspicious when we receive such links through text messages,” Ramos emphasized. 

He said that scammers managed to sneak messages in bulk in legitimate threads through the use of a web portal or application. 

To protect its customers against this new SMS scam, GCash has been sending out advisories through various platforms. 

“GCash will never send links via SMS, email and Messaging Apps,” the ewallet said on its FB page. 

Smart and Maya have been regularly sending this message to customers: “Never open links sent by text, even those from “Maya”. Scammers are now using illegal cell towers to send texts that appear to be from trusted brands.” 

Ramos said that  fighting cybercrime  begins with every individual.   

“The  government cannot do it alone. We need the support of everyone in the community,” he said.  

Ramos reiterated his appeal  to the public to report cybercrime incidents  to  the Inter Agency Response Center (IARC) Hotline 1326.