Mobile phone spam on the rise

The first quarter of 2007 saw two high profile cases of SMS spamming to mobile phones, both of which resulted in legal action being taken against the perpetrators. In January Sophos reported on a Florida couple being sued for sending five million spam messages to mobile phones advertising timeshares, while the following month, network operator Verizon Wireless won an injunction against a company which sent almost 100,000 spam messages to its customers.

“SMS spamming represents a handy new tactic for dodgy marketers – many people are used to ignoring unsolicited email spam, but they don’t necessarily expect it to turn up on their mobile handsets,” said Theriault. “Instances of SMS abuse should always be reported to network providers, however it should be noted that while this type of spamming is on the increase, it still represents a tiny problem compared to email spam.”