The Thailand police located a van and arrested its driver for using an SMS blaster device to spam over 100,000 SMS phishing texts an hour to people living in Bangkok.
The device, which reportedly had a range of approximately three kilometers (10,000 feet), could send out messages at a rate of 100,000 every hour.
Over three days, the scammers sent almost one million SMS text messages to mobile devices in range that stated, “Your 9,268 points are about to expire! Hurry up and redeem your gift now.”
The text messages contained a link to a phishing website that contained the string ‘aisthailand,’ impersonating Advanced Info Service (AIS), Thailand’s largest mobile phone operator.
Users who clicked on the phishing URL were taken to a page requesting their credit card information, which is then sent back to the scammers to perform unauthorized transactions in other countries.
The fraud gang, some of its members located in Thailand, and others abroad, coordinated through private Telegram channels, where the content of the SMS was decided.
A 35-year-old Chinese who was driving the vehicle containing the SMS blaster was arrested, and the police are looking for at least two more members of the fraud ring.
Khaosod English reports that AIS assisted the police in pinpointing the SMS blaster device. However, AIS has not provided details on how it was done to prevent spammers from adjusting their tactics.
Although these phishing messages typically have low success rates due to the public’s increased awareness, they can yield significant proceeds for the perpetrators when distributed at such a high rate and in densely populated areas.
