The Cybersecurity Center warns of fraudulent messages coming in the name of the Signal and Telegram messaging services. Owners of short phone numbers in particular have been targeted by criminals.
The Finnish Transport and Communications Agency Traficom’s Cybersecurity Center warns in his weekly review About the scam campaign targeting users of the Signal and Telegram messaging apps.
The Cyber Security Center says that it has received notifications from application users about phishing messages.
The criminals have especially targeted the owners of short phone numbers, with the goal of appearing in their name on Signal and Telegram.
Short telephone numbers, or so-called short numbers, are rare and originate from the early 1990s. They may have, for example, only four numbers after the initial three-digit part.
This is how fishing happens
The phishing message sent by the criminals states that the user’s device must be registered to the phone number again. Messages have been sent in Finnish, Swedish and English.
Even if the message appears to be coming from the name of Signal or Telegram, the information of the sender of the message is fake. There are typographical errors in the messages, from which it can be concluded that they are not actually sent by Signal.
In the incoming messages in the name of Signal, you are asked to share the confirmation code received via text message or to click on the link in the message. If you do this, the criminal can get the account for his own use.
In the Telegram scam, efforts have been made to create new accounts in the names of the owners of short phone numbers. If the victim follows the instructions in the scam message, they will have created a Telegram account directly for the criminals to use, giving them the opportunity to impersonate themselves.
Source: Cyber Security Center