Source: National Cyber Security – Produced By Gregory Evans
NEW YORK — There’s a problem with the way AT&T sends out customer alerts via text message: They’re too easy to mimic. With little effort, a scammer could send you alerts that look just like the real thing. Click on a link and the hacker will grab your login credentials — or fool you into giving up your credit card too. It’s yet another phishing scheme. But instead of email, hackers can target you with texts. The problem stems from AT&T not making its real alerts look legitimate enough, said Dani Grant, the computer programmer who noticed the flaw. “If the official texts look like phishing, it’s impossible for the customer to distinguish between what’s phishing and what’s not,” she said. First, AT&T’s alerts come from a weird, four-digit “short code” number. Anyone can buy a short code (charities do it all the time). And even more confusing, different AT&T customers see different short codes. Second, some of AT&T’s real links are funky. Some point to att.com while others take you to dl.mymobilelocate.com. Third, the text messages don’t even have a consistent format. Sometimes they start in all capital letters: “AT&T FREE MSG.” At other times they’re lowercase: “AT&T Free […]
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