March 13, 2008

SPAM move into SMS

SMS has become a rival for the email message in the amount of use that it gets, but unlike email the text message has managed to steer clear of the huge amount of spam that flood into the inboxes of virtually every email address in the entire world! Causing problems for some users who spend a long time deleting them all, haven’t they heard of delete all!

But having worn out the internet, spammers are now looking at the humble mobile phone as the next great market to conquer, with millions of phones out there in the world the market for a spammers if huge and potentially lucrative.

The extent of spam in the west is estimated to be at around five per cent of all sms messages sent, whereas in India and China the figures are around thirty and fifty per cent respectively. In theory it would be easier to send a spam text because you are dealing with numbers and not usernames. A spam text will come as a text link or a phone number to call, these look ok, but are only after personal and financial details.

Source [Washington Post]