Smishing and phishing: meaning and differences

Smishing is a form of phishing that uses email messages to trick victims into revealing personal or financial information. 

In line with the above, the very name smishing is a combination of the words SMS and phishing to pick up a specific type of cyberattack. 

We want to give you more information on this topic and for this purpose we have prepared an article in which we will start by reviewing the definitions of both concepts to finish by showing the main differences between smishing and phishing.

What is smishing?

Smishing is a social engineering attack that uses text messages as a hook to reach victims and get them to provide confidential data to be used in the scam. 

The information sought by cyberhackers is usually mainly related to passwords, financial data or personal data. 

In addition to asking for sensitive information using techniques such as creating urgency or creating fear for critical situations, cybercriminals also seek to trick you by sending your money to their accounts or downloading malware that they then use to get to the information contained in your electronic devices. 

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What is phishing?

Phishing is a type of cyberattack in which attackers impersonate a trusted entity or institution so that the victim passes them confidential information with which to impersonate their identity, gain unauthorized access to their bank or email accounts or carry out other fraudulent activities.

Being aware of the importance of keeping your digital privacy safe is essential to prevent unwanted phishing attacks.   

Differences between smishing and phishing

As we have already anticipated up to this point, smishing is a type of phising. 

Having settled this, let’s move on to the subtle differences between the two, which we have classified according to different concepts. 

• Scope. By mentioning that one is a type of the other, what is made clear is that smishing will always be phishing, but phishing can take other forms than smishing. Examples include whaling, vishing or spear phishing. 
• The communication channel or action. While phishing generally refers to email scams, smishing focuses on deceptive text messages. Let’s say the former is based on the channel – the email – while the latter focuses on the action – the text message.
• Target device. Smishing targets mobile devices while the phishing attack affects computers or any other device from which you have access to email: tablets, desktops, laptops, smartphones. 
• Links and attachments. Phishing emails usually include malicious links or attachments from which, when you click, the attacker manages to install malware or even a redirection to a fake website. In smishing, however, the message usually includes a link to click or a phone number to call that takes you to a fraudulent website or a phone line hijacked by the hacker. 

Points in common between phishing and smishing 

Having known their points of difference, we also consider it important to see what their commonalities are. 

• Both attacks rely heavily on social engineering techniques with which to deceive victims by means of emotionally convincing or compelling messages about imminent risks. 
• They take advantage of the trust conveyed by entities or institutions so that the fraud hook has sufficient credibility for the victim not to mistrust it and enter fully into the scam technique.
• They can target both individuals and organizations. For individuals, the attack comes from personal devices, while for companies it comes from campaigns that are more elaborated and customized for these types of victims. 
• The ultimate goal is to gain unauthorized access to personal or sensitive data, be it login access codes, financial data or corporate data to impersonate identities or steal money from victims’ accounts. 
• These two types of cybercrime take advantage of digital immediacy in the transmission of the hook, since they use channels and media where information is shared quickly and from any location.  

At Smowltech, we are aware that cybercriminals are constantly perfecting their scam techniques. This concerns us and has led us to develop software in which your security is one of our top priorities.  

But to ensure your security, you also need to adopt a proactive attitude and, therefore, we insist that it is important for you to be aware at all times of how to prevent attacks in order to try, as far as possible, to cope with them and protect yourself from them.

To do this, in addition to having free or paid mobile cybersecurity systems and solutions, we recommend that you learn and keep up to date on the most commonly practiced scams, as well as on the newly minted modalities, and you should not lose sight of the warning signs that put you in the background of possible new risk situations.

In this sense, take into account that our proctoring plans are great allies for our clients regarding remote supervision of company activities. Request a free demo and let us show you the innovative and effective computer and device activity monitoring solutions we have developed for you.

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