sms

OMG! Text messaging in decline for the first time

If ever a story called for the use of an emoticon, this would be the one: text messaging volume in the U.S. has declined for the first time ever, according to a new research report.

Regardless of whether the emoticon you'd assign to the story is a smiley or a sad face, it's worth noting that after years as a growing communications medium, texting may be starting to fall victim to new market trends, at least insofar as it generates revenues for wireless carriers.

In a report looking at the U.S. mobile data market in the third quarter, Chetan Sharma wrote that although other western countries have already started to see falling revenue in the messaging segment, this was the first time that American carriers have both mirrored that revenue pattern and seen a drop in the total volume of SMS messages sent. … Read more

Google brings new 'e-mail via text message' service to Africa

While a huge percentage of Africa's more than 1 billion residents have cell phones, far fewer have access to e-mail. Google is trying to change that.

According to the Associated Press, the Web giant is embarking on an ambitious endeavor that will let people receive e-mails via text messages. In effect, Google will be giving people access to the Internet with feature handsets. Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya are the first countries to get the service.

Nigerians began seeing ads posted on billboards around the country for Google's text message email service in July, according to the Associated Press. … Read more

Phishing attacks via text spiked this week -- researcher

A surge in SMS phishing attacks this week took security experts by surprise and tricked victims into providing credit card and other sensitive information to scammers, a researcher said today.

The phishing onslaught, which targeted customers of the major cellular carriers in the U.S., started on Tuesday, said Mary Landesman, senior security researcher at security provider Cloudmark.

The number of SMS-based phishing attempts observed by security firm Cloudmark based on reports from consumers rose more than 900 percent during the first week of September from what would be expected over that period in a normal month, she said in … Read more

iPhone SMS vulnerability not present in other OSes

Earlier this month, news surfaced that iPhones were more susceptible to spoofed SMS messages and phishing attempts via text, and now it seems the vulnerability is more or less exclusive to iOS.

That's according to research from mobile security firm AdaptiveMobile, which says it may be harder to spot spoofed texts and phishing attacks on the iPhone than on other mobile OSes. At issue is the fact that iOS displays the "reply to" number for received texts, which can be modified to make it appear as if a text message originated from a different number than it … Read more

Indian government warns Twitter over not censoring tweets

India's government is instigating a full-fledged crackdown on social networks and various Web sites. After working with Facebook and Google to censor content, it's now clamping down on Twitter.

If Twitter doesn't go along with the government's demands of censorship, it may face legal action, according to The Times of India.

Here's what the Times of India wrote in an article today:

...a senior government official has said that Twitter has already been told that legal action may be taken against it as it had failed to cooperate with the Indian government in its efforts … Read more

iPhone SMS spoofing tool surfaces

A French hacker is playing "tell and show" with a security flaw in iOS and how the iPhone handles SMS.

Last week, "Pod2g" released details of the vulnerability, which is still present in the latest beta of iOS 6, that could make iPhones a bit more exposed to spoofed texts or phishing scams. The missive included a plea to Apple to fix the security hole before the final release of iOS 6.

Until that happens, however, the same hacker is apparently quite happy to help others exploit the fact that iOS shows the "reply-to" … Read more

Apple responds to iPhone SMS security vulnerability

Yesterday I reported on revelations that iPhones may be particularly vulnerable to an SMS spoofing attack. Basically, because of the way iOS handles text headers, a nasty person could manipulate the "reply-to" number to appear to be someone they're not, like a financial institution.

After a hacker revealed the vulnerability earlier this week, Engadget received this response from Apple on the matter:… Read more

iPhone SMS vulnerable, according to researcher

Ever received a text from your bank on your iPhone? You may want to take a closer look and make sure it's the real deal.

A hacker who goes by the handle "pod2g" says a security flaw has made receiving texts on an iPhone insecure since the inception of iOS, and that the vulnerability still remains in the latest beta of iOS 6.… Read more

Protect yourself from smishing (video)

We've all heard about phishing attacks -- those spammy e-mails you get in your in-box imploring you to divulge your personal information. Now those annoying scams are coming to a cell phone near you -- it's called smishing, or phishing via SMS text message.

Text messaging is the most common nonvoice use of a mobile phone, and scam artists are taking full advantage of that. In fact, according to security firm Cloudmark , about 30 million smishing messages are sent to cell phone users across North America, Europe, and the U.K. Smishing is part of the much larger … Read more

Get free alert tones with this simple app on iOS

Customizing alerts on your iOS device is a great way to quickly personalize your device. With the release of iOS 5 last fall, Apple finally added the ability for users to change the default alert tones for services such as SMS and e-mails. This meant users could then purchase tones directly from Apple, create their own, or use an app to acquire some new tones.

One such app, SMS Ringtones Free (download link), is very easy to use and has a fun list of tones available for its users to download.

While there isn't a way to save the … Read more