Toronto police seize 'SMS blasters,' a cybercrime weapon never before seen in Canada (nationalpost.com)

submitted 1 week ago by HiddenLayer555@lemmy.ml to c/canada@lemmy.ca

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/46348914

TIL your phone apparently does no or easily spoofed authentication of the identity of the base station it decides to connect to. Anyone know more about this and how it's possible?

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[-] HiddenLayer555@lemmy.ml 3 points 6 days ago

Especially when they spoof the phone number to be from official numbers. Your first instinct is probably to check if the number really belongs to CRA/Canada Post/etc, and while the idea of being asked for payment via text in general should set off your suspicision, a genuine number could easily convince enough people to make a profit. Basically like the social engineering version of spoofing a TLS identity via a compromised certificate authority.

[-] Reannlegge@lemmy.ca 2 points 6 days ago

If I have the time I waste those scammers time, it is so rare that I get one of those calls now a days, maybe once every few years.

[-] HiddenLayer555@lemmy.ml 2 points 6 days ago

If they have enough of your voice they can AI it though.

[-] Reannlegge@lemmy.ca 3 points 6 days ago

My number got black listed years ago on many of those scammer lists, the last time I had time to waste on one of those calls, they where calling a cell phone I had for work (Statistics Canada at the time, I sadly no longer work with there) and they where saying something had leaked and they where from the Government of Canada I so wanted to waste their time as I drove across town for a work meeting.