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Spam SMSs spread on mobile networks
By siliconindia
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Thursday, 05 February 2009, 20:16 IST |
3 Comments
Mumbai: As new features are being added onto mobile phones to offer maximum benefits to the users, spammers make use of this opportunity to send unwanted SMSs on themes like 'get rich quick' and 'free gift' to mislead the users, reported by CXOtoday.com. The users are informed that they have won a prize and asked to call to collect their prize. On calling the number in the text message, subscribers are billed a high amount up to 500/minute.
Noticing these SMSs in one of their circles, Airtel has posted an advisory on their website which advises the users to beware of such unsolicited fraudulent SMSs circulating on the network. Airtel also says that replaying to such SMSs could result in virus being downloaded on the phone.
However, a Vodafone spokesperson opined that such spam SMSs were quite common, though Vodafone had not got similar reports in its network for the last six-seven months. Rajesh Patalia, AGM (mobile data & content services) of Reliance Communications, blamed web spammers for launching these attacks and said that they do not single out any particular network provider, but launch a mass attack by sending out bulk SMSs to random numbers. He also complained that users do not always report receiving such fraudulent messages.