Spam on mobile phones is becoming a growing problem.
Experts at SophosLabs™, Sophos's global
network of virus, spyware and spam analysis centers, have warned of
the rising nuisance of spam sent to mobile phones as two people
from Florida have been charged with flooding cell phones with spam
messages advertising time shares.
Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan has filed a suit against
Neela Pundit and Charles Rossop for sending 5 million unsolicited
text messages to cell phone owners across the country.
More than 200 consumers complained in Illinois alone after
receiving the advertisements in October and November 2006 which
read:
We have someone interested in buying or
renting your Time Share
and encouraged recipients to visit two internet websites.
"Cell phone spam isn't just a nuisance, it can potentially hit
you in the pocket too. Often mobile spam messages may tell you just
to call back a certain number, only for the recipient to find they
are unwittingly making a premium rate call," said Graham Cluley, senior
technology consultant for Sophos. "Although it's a long way to go
before SMS text spam is anything like as big a problem as regular
email spam, we are hearing more reports of cell phone users being
targeted. Users should report SMS abuse to their phone network
providers and think carefully before acting upon unsolicited text
messages."
This week Sophos published its
annual Security Threat Report, which detailed the latest
developments in the techniques used by spammers to try and get
their marketing messages in front of internet users.
Sophos is headquartered in Boston, US and Oxford, UK. More information is available at www.sophos.com.