smishing

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

The 404 1,028: Where we go Dumpster diving (podcast)

Richard, our studio engineer, is the inspiration for today's show title that goes along with a story about his old Dumpster-diving days, when he'd raid the Hostess factory at the end of the night to recover "old" Twinkies and Ho Hos.

Jeff faced childhood memories of his own this weekend while cleaning out his old closet, unearthing treasures like Palm Pilots, two Sega Dreamcasts, and a box of old CD jewel cases. If you don't know what those things are, you're too young to be listening to The 404.… Read more

How to avoid growing number of Internet scams

Hard times seem to make people more vulnerable to ploys designed to separate them from their money and personal information. At least half of BBB Online's list of the Top 10 scams of 2010 occur in whole or in part over the Internet.

The best way to avoid being victimized by scammers is to be very careful about who you trust. Here are five ways to protect yourself from attacks on your bank accounts and private data.

Don't pay upfront One thing several recent scams have in common is a request by the scammer for you to pay … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 918: The incredible, edible car

Within 15 years, cars will be made of seaweed, but will they be edible? That's your next task, auto industry. We also make book recommendations, give medical advice, and generally just try to help. Oh, and we talk about exploding donut factories.

Listen now: Download today's podcast EPISODE 918

Court upholds AP “quasi-property” rights on hot news http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/02/24/2229205

Conan copyright trolls censor fan-readings of public-domain stories http://www.boingboing.net/2009/02/25/conan-copyright-trol.html

SMiShing’ fishes for personal data over cell phone http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10171241-83.html… Read more

'SMiShing' fishes for personal data over cell phone

When we think of phishing attacks, in which scammers try to lure sensitive information out of Internet users, we think of fake official-looking e-mails and Web sites.

But you don't even need to be online to get phished. A phishing attack making the rounds tries to dupe cell phone users into revealing their personal data over the phone. It uses SMS messages, which makes it a "SMiShing" attempt.

It all starts with a spam text message purporting to be from a financial institution. In this case, it's from a source identified as KeyPoint Credit Union, warning … Read more