Although we can also be the victim of a scam through a phone call, it is more common than the attempt to rip us off arrive by SMS or by a messaging application. From codes sent by mistake to the payment of Customs, going through the suspension of Netflix payment or your daughter telling you that she does not have WhatsApp.
Who has not ever received one of these suspicious messages? One of those that is circulating in recent days is posing as Movistar. To such an extent, that the operator himself has been forced to warn of his falsehood.
“Your points will expire today, redeem them”
Unlike the phisingwhere the medium used is email, the smishing choose sending messageseither through the short messaging system (SMS) or the different instant messaging platforms (WhatsApp, especially).
In any case, the objective of these identity thefts is usually to you click on a link and, through it, steal your data. These malicious SMS are short, simple and are usually urgent so that you click on the link as soon as possible.
All these factors are precisely what we find in one of the mass mailings that are circulating lately and that supplant Movistar. The operator itself has been the one that has warned of this campaign on its social networks so that its customers are warned:
Keep an eye out! 👀⚠️ A massive SMS message has been detected impersonating Movistar that includes a URL that “exchange points for terminals”. Do not click, this is a malicious campaign.
In this post we explain how to identify and protect yourself from these threats. 🛡️👇🏻
— Movistar Spain (@movistar_es) March 10, 2023
The SMS in question invites you to click on a link to redeem points for terminalswith the warning that the points expire today and that expired are no longer useful (the urgency that we talked about before).
At the end of the SMS there is a link with an unreliable shortened URL (which we should never click on), since Movistar always sends its links to movistar.es. In addition, the sender is not Movistar or Movistar.es, something that should make us suspect from the outset.
So now you know, as we always recommend, always be suspicious of this type of message and never open the links to web pages that have attachments. Delete it as soon as possible and notify the entity they have tried to usurp, in this case, Movistar (you can call 1004 or fill out this form).
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