Fears of Russian Cyber Attack on US as American Mobile Users Get Spam Texts From Own Numbers

US President Joe Biden had last week said that the intelligence indicated a growing Russian cyber threat to the US.

San Francisco: In what could best be termed as bizarre, thousands of mobile users in the US received spam texts from their own phone numbers. This prompted leading telecom carrier Verizon Wireless to say that there are “bad actors” behind the spam.

According to a report in The Verge, in some users’ cases, the spam link forwarded them to Channel One Russia, a Russian state media network.

Verizon, however, said, “We have no indication that this fraudulent activity is originating in Russia.”

Initially being taken as a prank or a random, spoofed spam message started to look like a focused effort targeting Verizon Wireless.

“Verizon is aware that bad actors are sending spam text messages to some customers which appear to come from the customers’ own number,” a Verizon spokesperson told The Verge late on Tuesday.

“Our team is actively working to block these messages, and we have engaged with US law enforcement to identify and stop the source of this fraudulent activity,” the company added.

The spam texts appeared as US companies are on high cyber-security attack alert from Russia-backed hackers over the severe US sanctions.

“We believe this activity is being generated from external bad actors with no direct tie to our company,” said Verizon.

US President Joe Biden had last week said that the intelligence indicated a growing Russian cyber threat to the US.

He said Russia was “exploring” cyberattacks, but the US would use “every tool” to prevent and respond to such a move. Moscow could act in retaliation for sanctions imposed on it after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Following the sanctions, Biden had warned of a possible cyberattack from Russia.

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