‘Smishing’ attack on mobiles

The Department of Internal Affairs has received nearly 80 complaints over a mass spamming of mobile users over the weekend.

Many Kiwi mobile phone users reported receiving spam texts, carrying a message usually associated with ‘‘Nigerian’’ email frauds.

Customers of Spark, Vodafone and 2degrees have all reported receiving text messages supposedly from a ‘‘Satoru Ochiai’’ in Japan.

The messages contained an invitation to receive a ‘‘$20m business proposal’’ and an email address ‘‘for details’’.

Spark spokeswoman Michelle Baguley said she was among the people who had received one of the text messages ‘‘as did many of my friends and colleagues from all networks’’.

‘‘A number of Spark customers received the text between 7.30am and 8.15am, before it was shut down,’’ she said.

Vodafone spokeswoman Elissa Downey confirmed that its customers had also received the scam texts, and the company’s security team quickly blocked the numbers.

Spark said it was performing ‘‘a full investigation’’ and had notified Internal Affairs.

Baguley said the text scam was known as ‘‘smishing’’ or SMS fishing.

Mobile phone users received text messages sometimes containing a web link which, if clicked, could download malware to the mobile phone.

‘‘In this case it was a Hotmail address to respond to. Normally you will be directed to a fraudulent website that will ask you to enter your personal information, such as your name, address, phone number, email address and bank account.’’