Smishing

5 minutes 5 Questions

Smishing is a type of social engineering attack that uses SMS (short message service) text messages to deceive victims into revealing sensitive information, clicking on malicious links, or installing malware. Smishing messages often pretend to be from legitimate sources, such as banks, stores, or government agencies, and may use a sense of urgency to trick the victim into taking immediate action. Smishing attacks can lead to identity theft, financial loss, and compromised devices. To protect against smishing, users should be cautious with unsolicited text messages and verify the legitimacy of the message before taking any action. Additionally, organizations should promote cybersecurity awareness among employees and implement security measures, such as spam filters and strong authentication policies.

Guide: Understanding and Answering Questions on Smishing

Importance: Smishing is a form of cybercrime that utilizes social engineering tactics to trick individuals into divulging personal information, financial details, and other sensitive data. Understanding smishing is crucial for IT professionals, as it aids in identifying and mitigating potential cybersecurity threats.

What is Smishing?: Smishing, or SMS phishing, involves scammers sending SMS messages to trick recipients into divulging critical information, typically by posing as legitimate organizations.

How it works: Smishers send text messages that may contain a sense of urgency, appeal to fear, or offer some form of reward to entice victims into clicking malicious links or providing personal data. The links often lead to fake websites designed to collect this information.

Exam Tips - Answering Questions on Smishing: For exams, remember the key characteristics of smishing attacks. Understand the implications of such attacks, their prevention, and mitigation tactics. Comprehend the psychological tricks used in these attacks. Identify the urgent, alarming language, and too-good-to-be-true offers, often signal smishing attempts. Acknowledge that legitimate organizations rarely, if ever, request personal or financial details over text. Read questions carefully, analyze the given scenario, and use your theoretical knowledge of smishing to choose the most appropriate answer.

Test mode:

Exam (Timed)

Practice (With explanations)

Start practice test

Question 1

Sara receives a text message claiming she won a $500 gift card and asks her to click a link to claim her prize. What should Sara do?

Click on the link to claim the gift card Ignore and delete the message, then report it to the authorities Reply to the text asking for more details Ask friends or family to check the legitimacy of the message

Correct Answer: Ignore and delete the message, then report it to the authorities

Sara should not interact with the suspicious message to avoid smishing scams. Instead, she should delete the message and report it to the appropriate authorities, ensuring her safety and helping to catch scammers.

Question 2

Tom receives a text message from an unknown number saying his email password has been compromised and instructing him to click a link to change it. What should Tom do?

Forward the message to his contacts to warn them Use the official website to check the security of his email and change the password Reply to the text message to confirm the threat Click on the link to change the password immediately

Correct Answer: Use the official website to check the security of his email and change the password

Tom should not click on the link provided in the message. Instead, he should access the official website of his email provider and change his password from there to ensure security. Reporting the incident is also recommended.

Question 3

John received a text message claiming to be from his bank, asking for his account number and password. What should he do?

Reply to the text message with the requested information Delete the text message and ignore it Forward the message to a friend for advice Contact the bank directly using a phone number or website from an official source

Correct Answer: Contact the bank directly using a phone number or website from an official source

To avoid falling for a smishing attack, it is essential to verify the sender's authenticity by contacting the bank via their official contact details (website or known phone number) and not providing any personal information through text messages.

Go Premium