SMS phishers pivot to points, taxes, fake retailers

I’m super cautious with these messages like I’m sure we all are but on Monday I ordered a printer from Amazon. They said it would arrive on Wednesday. On Wednesday I was working from home and I got a text from “Purolator” saying they’d tried to deliver my package and failed. Shit! I’d been listening to beats too loud to hear the knock on the door! I ran outside to see if the delivery guy was still on my street. No one was around…and then I realized, damn, they got me (to dash outside, anyway).

These things can fail 99.99% of the time but when they land on someone at just the right moment, it’s so easy to just go on autopilot and do the dumb thing.

This type of stuff is diabolical for old folks who just weren't inoculated to these scams. I feel terrible for them. Get calls often asking me to help interpret.

I think we're at the point where both phone and SMS are such insecure and easily spoofed channels that we should basically not be using them for anything related to business or money. Maybe even for communication, given how easily scammers can fake a loved ones voice and phone number.

Why don't Google and Apple adopt passcodes to avoid this scam from working? Their operating systems already support passcodes.