Residents throughout america are being inundated with textual content messages purporting to come back from toll highway operators like E-ZPass, warning that recipients face fines if a delinquent toll price stays unpaid. Researchers say the surge in SMS spam coincides with new options added to a well-liked business phishing equipment bought in China that makes it easy to arrange convincing lures spoofing toll highway operators in a number of U.S. states.
Final week, the Massachusetts Division of Transportation (MassDOT) warned residents to be looking out for a brand new SMS phishing or “smishing” rip-off focusing on customers of EZDriveMA, MassDOT’s all digital tolling program. Those that fall for the rip-off are requested to offer cost card knowledge, and ultimately shall be requested to provide a one-time password despatched through SMS or a cellular authentication app.
Studies of comparable SMS phishing assaults in opposition to prospects of different U.S. state-run toll services surfaced across the similar time because the MassDOT alert. Folks in Florida reported receiving SMS phishing that spoofed Sunpass, Florida’s pay as you go toll program.
This phishing module for spoofing MassDOT’s EZDrive toll system was provided on Jan. 10, 2025 by a China-based SMS phishing service referred to as “Lighthouse.”
In Texas, residents stated they acquired textual content messages about unpaid tolls with the North Texas Toll Authority. Related reviews got here from readers in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Minnesota, and Washington. That is not at all a complete listing.
A brand new module from the Lighthouse SMS phishing equipment launched Jan. 14 targets prospects of the North Texas Toll Authority (NTTA).
In every case, the emergence of those SMS phishing assaults coincided with the discharge of latest phishing equipment capabilities that intently mimic these toll operator web sites as they seem on cellular units. Notably, not one of the phishing pages will even load except the web site detects that the customer is coming from a cellular machine.
Ford Merrill works in safety analysis at SecAlliance, a CSIS Safety Group firm. Merrill stated the quantity of SMS phishing assaults spoofing toll highway operators skyrocketed after the New Yr, when at the least one Chinese language cybercriminal group recognized for promoting refined SMS phishing kits started providing new phishing pages designed to spoof toll operators in varied U.S. states.
In keeping with Merrill, a number of China-based cybercriminals are promoting distinct SMS-based phishing kits that every have tons of or 1000’s of shoppers. The last word aim of those kits, he stated, is to phish sufficient data from victims that their cost playing cards may be added to cellular wallets and used to purchase items at bodily shops, on-line, or to launder cash via shell corporations.
A part of the Chinese language SMS phishing equipment Lighthouse made to focus on prospects of The Toll Roads, which refers to a number of state routes via Orange County, Calif.
Merrill stated the completely different purveyors of those SMS phishing instruments historically have impersonated delivery corporations, customs authorities, and even governments with tax refund lures and visa or immigration renewal scams focusing on individuals who could also be dwelling overseas or new to a rustic.
“What we’re seeing with these tolls scams is only a continuation of the Chinese language smishing teams rotating from bundle redelivery schemes to toll highway scams,” Merrill stated. “Each one in all us by now could be sick and bored with receiving these bundle smishing assaults, so now it’s a brand new twist on an current rip-off.”
In October 2023, KrebsOnSecurity wrote about an enormous uptick in SMS phishing scams focusing on U.S. Postal Service prospects. That story revealed the surge was tied to improvements launched by “Chenlun,” a mainland China-based proprietor of a well-liked phishing equipment and repair. On the time, Chenlun had simply launched new phishing pages made to impersonate postal providers in america and at the least a dozen different international locations.
SMS phishing kits are hardly new, however Merrill stated Chinese language smishing teams not too long ago have launched improvements in deliverability, by extra seamlessly integrating their spam messages with Apple’s iMessage know-how, and with RCS, the equal “wealthy textual content” messaging functionality constructed into Android units.
“Whereas conventional smishing kits relied closely on SMS for supply, these days the actors make heavy use of iMessage and RCS as a result of telecom operators can’t filter them and so they possible have the next success fee with these supply channels,” he stated.
It stays unclear how the phishers have chosen their targets, or from the place their knowledge could also be sourced. A discover from MassDOT cautions that “the focused cellphone numbers appear to be chosen at random and should not uniquely related to an account or utilization of toll roads.”
Certainly, one reader shared on Mastodon yesterday that they’d acquired one in all these SMS phishing assaults spoofing an area toll operator, after they didn’t even personal a automobile.
Focused or not, these phishing web sites are harmful as a result of they’re operated dynamically in real-time by criminals. If you happen to obtain one in all these messages, simply ignore it or delete it, however please don’t go to the phishing web site. The FBI asks that earlier than you bin the missives, take into account submitting a grievance with the company’s Web Crime Criticism Middle (IC3), together with the cellphone quantity the place the textual content originated, and the web site listed throughout the textual content.