Fighting malware and spam

Gimme me all your money!

Darya Bronnikova Kaspersky Lab
Anna Volodina Kaspersky Lab

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Recently, spam has increasingly been the carrier not only of advertising information, but also of frank fraud aimed at making money quickly. One such kind of fraud is so-called SMS fraud, which is widespread in some countries.

At the heart of this criminal action is a spam message which persuades the user to send an SMS or to call a paid number for some plausible-sounding reason. Spamers have thought up hundreds of ways of fooling unsuspecting users into carrying out the desired actions, and users continue to send SMS, call, and lose hundreds of thousands of dollars.

In this paper we will examine fraud schemes, the reason for their wide circulation in some parts of the world and a total absence in others, and also look at some legal schemes for the use of SMS marketing.

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