Vishing – Fraudulent Text Messages

So what should you do if your financial institution members are being bombarded with fraudulent text messages that ask them to call a specific number that in turn tries to phish credit card numbers or other sensitive information from them?  A vulnerability assessment won’t help you here but you should keep the abuse numbers below handy.

You should email the abuse numbers for the carrier of that number .  For example if you can find out that it was Verizon phone number, you can email Verizon at abuse@verizon.com and phishing@verizonwireless.com.  In addition you will want to forward the email to abuse@fbi.gov and abuse@fcc.com as well.

 So what information should you include in this email?  You will want to include the following information:

Offending Text Message Number along with Area Code

The Victim Text Message Number along with Area Code

The Carrier

The Location the Text Message is calling From

The Calling Area

The Time Zone

The Time at the Current Location

 You will also want to call the carrier of the offending number and attempt to have it blocked by the carrier.  In most instances the carrier will be happy to do it for you.