Text scams: The messages that allow criminals to break into your iPhone, and how to spot them
Sign up to our free weekly IndyTech newsletter delivered straight to your inbox Sign up to our free IndyTech newsletter Sign up to our free IndyTech newsletter SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. The technology that powers texts allows people to put custom names in when they send messages – allowing people to easily pretend to be Google, Apple or anybody else. Cyber criminals holding phone and computer data to ransom As such, the main thing is to never give any information over text message, and only use it as a way of showing alerts. It’s a sneaky way of getting people to put the authentication message that they have received from Google into a text message so that scammers can get around the security setup. And sites such as Google and others that use two-factor authentication will only ever send you the messages if you ask for them; if you’re receiving them without asking, it probably means someone is trying to break into your account.
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