What is smishing?

Smishing is phishing carried out over SMS text messages.

By AlertaSpam Security Team. Published August 7, 2026

Smishing messages typically claim to be from a bank, courier, or government agency, and push you toward a link with a false sense of urgency — a held package, a suspended account, an unpaid toll.

Because SMS sender names ('sender IDs') can be spoofed or reused, seeing a familiar name in the sender field does not confirm who actually sent the message. See our guide on spotting a fake text message for concrete signs to check.

AlertaSpam tracks SMS sender IDs as a separate entity type precisely because the same displayed name can be used by both a real organization and by scammers impersonating it.