Smishing

In telecommunications, Smishing is phishing carried out over SMS, in which attackers send messages with malicious links or instructions to harvest credentials, install malware, or trigger fraudulent transactions. Operators mitigate smishing through SMS firewalls, content-based filtering, sender-ID validation, and abuse reporting integrated with the GSMA T-ISAC.

Categories: Radio Access NetworkSecurity ControlsThreats and Attacks

Smishing in context

The radio access network is the layer where mobile devices attach to the operator's infrastructure. Attacks in this layer include IMSI catching, rogue base stations, downgrade attacks and jamming, and defenses hinge on mutual authentication, integrity-protected signaling and Open RAN supply-chain hygiene.

Security controls in telecom span signaling firewalls (SS7/Diameter/GTP screening at the network edge), transport encryption (IPsec, TLS, PRINS), identity and access on OSS/BSS, and monitoring at both the packet and log level. Controls are audited against GSMA FS.11/FS.19/FS.20/FS.36 and, in Europe, NIS2 sectoral rules.

To place Smishing in the wider telecom-security picture, review SCP Abuse, ICMP, NTP, Vishing, A5/0 and DNS.

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