Articles about SMS

This Sunday, September 7th, the UK will test its emergency alert system, sending a message that will cause 4G and 5G mobile phones and tablets to emit a loud siren sound and vibrate for about 10 seconds.

But Marc Porcar, CEO of QR Code Generator, is warning that fraudsters are likely to exploit the upcoming government test, particularly targeting elderly and vulnerable people who may be confused by the alerts.

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Most incidents of phishing or spoofing on smartphones still happen via email, according to MEF's (Mobile Ecosystem Forum) 9th Annual Trust Study.

The report shows 52 percent of users reporting personal experience of data harm via this channel. Surprisingly, 39 percent of those users still took no preventative measures to protect their online data.

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In our modern hyperconnected world, we are constantly sending emails, instant messages, SMS messages, chats on social media, and much more to send information professional and personal. As each aspect of our lives continues to become digitized -- and as cybercrime gets ready to reach more than $10 trillion by 2025 -- it's becoming more important than ever to use encrypted messaging and secure communication tools to preserve our privacy.

Guarding your digital realm is thankfully more than viable with encrypted messaging and secure communication, in particular technologies such as end-to-end encryption, decentralized messaging platforms, and advanced privacy-enhancing features. To that end, let's talk about how these pioneering tools are playing a crucial role in protecting individuals, businesses, and journalists from cybercrimes.

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RCS is a cross-platform messaging protocol designed as a successor to the outdated SMS and MMS standards, and Google today launches a new website to try and shame Apple into adopting it.

If you have an iPhone and message Android-owning friends regularly using the Apple’s Messages app, then you’ll know that the message bubbles show up in different colors -- blue for fellow iPhone owners, and green for those on Android. However, you might also have encountered problems like low res photos and videos, missing read receipts and typing indicators, and broken group chats when engaging in cross-platform messaging. This, Google says bluntly, is down to Apple.

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The UK's National Computer Security centre (NCSC) has recently issued new guidance on secure communications for voice and video calls and SMS in order to help protect consumers from scams.

UK telecoms regulator Ofcom has also announced a crackdown on scam phone calls using fake numbers as their volume has soared during the pandemic.

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One of my favorite films is World War Z. It is a very flawed movie, but I still enjoy it. In the film, Brad Pitt's character utilizes a satellite phone, which I just find to be extremely interesting. I am sure such a thing is expensive -- particularly the service contract -- but how cool is it to be able to communicate without the need of cellular?

And so, today, a new product caught my eye -- the SPOT X Jeep Edition 2-Way Satellite Messenger. While not a phone, it can send and receive text messages via satellite, which is rather neat. I expected such a product to be very expensive, and carry a high monthly service cost, but actually, it is surprisingly affordable. Not to mention, it looks to be quite rugged, and the Jeep branding -- while gimmicky -- actually looks pretty cool.

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A huge database of text messages and user data has been discovered online, completely unprotected and free for anyone to browse.

Found by researchers from vpnMentor, the database belongs to US communications company, TrueDialog. Among the exposed data are not only tens of millions of SMS messages, but also private information including usernames and passwords.

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Spam may be something that's most commonly associated with email, but it's also something that blights text messaging. Google is trying to do something about the problem with a spam protection feature for Messages on Android.

This is a feature we learned about earlier in the year, and it is now starting to roll out to handsets. In order for the feature to work, "some" information about the messages you receive needs to be sent to Google -- something that it sure to raise a few eyebrows (and hackles) among the privacy-centric.

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