DHL warns of phishing SMS

Short messages are currently circulating that supposedly come from DHL and ask the recipient to confirm address data or to update data. The parcel service is currently warning of this. These text messages did not come from the company.

DHL writes on Facebook: “Beware of fraud: SMS messages are currently in circulation that request your address or ask you to update your data. Please do not click on the link in the message!” The SMS does not come from the company, even if “DHL” or “DHL Paket” is displayed as the sender.

Phishing SMS: Appear in real SMS threads with DHL

DHL further adds: “Some of these SMS even appear in the real older SMS history with DHL Paket and therefore appear very authentic.” However, the service provider never asks customers via SMS for payments or address and other data changes.

If recipients have followed such SMS links and disclosed data, good advice is expensive. Victims should, for example, take screenshots of the text messages and report them to the local police or the online watchdog. A background article on heise online explains what victims of a phishing train can still do if their data is actually misused, for example to go on a shopping spree.

Phishing scams are a constant threat and don’t seem to be abating. Only at the beginning of this week did the police warn of 1&1 Ionos phishing emails. In addition, phishing attacks are becoming more and more perfidious and difficult to detect, since online scammers could use AI like ChatGPT to create more convincing phishing texts. The artificial intelligence tool is already being used by cyber criminals to create malware, for example.

(dmk)