On Wednesday, Australian authorities accused a man residing in a Sydney suburb of sending 17 million fraudulent texts, nearly one for each adult in the nation.
The 39-year-old, who has not been identified, is, according to New South Wales police, solely to blame for the scam texts that have been bothering cell phone customers all throughout the nation.
The texts were supposedly sent using “SIM boxes,” which have the capacity to send tens of thousands of messages every day. They contained bogus URLs that appeared to be from Australia Post or toll road operators.
After being accused of “committing serious offence” with networked equipment, the individual was released on bond.
“SMS phishing is one of the most common tactics deployed by scammers to obtain banking and other personal information from a victim,” said Jason Smith, commander of the police Cybercrime Squad.
“SIM boxes can hold over 250 active SIM cards and will typically send out up to 150,000 messages per day containing phishing lures to various scams.”
AFP
