4.5 Billion Spam Text Messages Are Sent Every Year

Sites include ATT.com , Sprint.com , Verizon.com . Published on May 15th, 2012. Written by Anthony West.

There has never been a more lucrative time for spammers like now and it seems the mobile phone is the new cash cow.

According to new figures from a Bloomberg report and spam expert Richi Jennings, text message spam is the fastest growing sector among spammers and increased 45% in 2011 to a staggering 4.5 billion messages.

In most cases you have little to worry about if you don’t respond to a message or click on outgoing links, but doing either can be potentially costly. In some cases responding to text messages can add charges to your bill and if you are unfortunate enough to click on a link, you may infect your phone with malware—which then siphons off your personal details and give you a potentially bigger headache.

The fight against text message spam is still in its infancy and doesn’t have the sophistication that is seen on platforms like Facebook and Twitter. For those affected by text message spam the industry message is ‘beware’. If you own a iPhone 4S and get a text message promising a iPhone 5, don’t fall for it. Doing so could end up costing you a lot more than just your phone.

Are you suffering from text message spam? Let us know what you are doing about it using the comments below.