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Not all phishing takes place online. Text message-based phishing, called smishing, is still out there, and though on the decline, a report from security vendor Internet Identity (IID) shows it is still being used to target credit unions.
In smishing, scammers use text messages to impersonate companies and lure victims into calling a fake interactive voice response (IVR) system designed to steal personal data like account credentials and social security numbers. Another smishing variant is text-to-Website, where the text message lures the victim to a traditional phishing Website.
There are likely no more than a few groups perpetrating text phishing attacks as opposed to several dozen perpetrating other forms of phishing. The good news is that Internet Identity reported the prevalence of the attack dropped 62 percent during the first quarter of 2010.
Credit unions are targeted usually by geography. Since smaller credit unions often serve a single state or single metro area, it is relatively simple to target the right area codes to reach the targeted institution's members.
Read the entire eWEEK Security Watch blog here.