- Scammers have a new trick up their sleeve and are using it on iPhone users
- They ask you to respond to their text messages, which disables Apple’s scam protection.
- Fortunately, there are several ways to stay safe
Apple has built several scam protection tools into iOS, one of which disables links in SMS messages if the text comes from an unknown number. However, it seems that scammers have found a way to bypass these defenses and send you dangerous links, despite Apple’s best efforts.
As Bleeping Computer noted, the links are reactivated if you reply to a message from an unknown source, because Apple assumes that replying means you trust the sender enough to also trust the URLs they have included.
However, the scammers figured this out by asking their victims to respond to their message and then click on the reactivated links. For example, one fraudulent message seen by Bleeping Computer contained a phishing link (which had been disabled), with the following text underneath:
“Please reply Y, then exit the text message, reopen the text message activation link, or copy the link to Safari browser to open it.”
The idea seems to be that people are so accustomed to responding to automated text messages with things like “YES” and “NO” that they will automatically do the same with phishing messages, allowing potentially dangerous links to appear. work again.
How to stay safe
If you receive an unexpected message from an unknown source and see that the text contains links, do not respond to it. This will make the links active again, but simply ignoring the text (and reporting it as spam) will ensure that you can’t fall victim to it.
If you are unsure of the authenticity of a message, the advice remains the same: do not respond to it. Instead, contact the company directly using their official channels. This will connect you with a legitimate employee who can tell you whether the message you received is trustworthy or not.
Even if you don’t click on any suspicious links in the text, simply replying to the message will signal to the scammer that your number is active and that you are ready to respond to phishing messages, making you an inviting target.
Prevention is better than cure in these situations. If you received a text message that you weren’t expecting from a sender claiming to be an official source, it’s best to be cautious rather than take unnecessary risks. If in doubt, simply report it and don’t interact with it.
