Technologies

Scam Texts Cost Consumers $330 Million in 2022, FTC Says

Careful before you open that SMS. The Federal Trade Commission says scams spread by text on are the rise.

Scams spread by text messages accounted for $330 million in reported US consumer losses last year, according to a Federal Trade Commission report released Thursday.

That’s more than double the losses of the year before and marks a fivefold increase since 2019, the FTC says. It added that text scam reports started spiking during the first six months of the COVID-19 pandemic and haven’t fallen back to their previous levels since.

Cybersecurity researchers say they’ve also noticed a rise in these kinds of scams. Dubbed smishing, a contraction of SMS and phishing, some texts are clearly spammy. They tout obvious bait such as energy-boosting supplements, cash prizes from major retailers or CBD gummies in new flavors. Some are more subtle, masquerading as COVID test results, shipping notifications or alerts for online payments that didn’t go through. Either way, they’re dangerous.

The vast majority of phishing attacks — attempts to grab personal data from unsuspecting consumers — still come by way of email. Cybercriminals, however, are increasingly taking advantage of distracted consumers who are rarely without their smartphones to bilk people out of their logins and passwords, credit card or other financial information, or even access to their corporate networks.

As part of its study of the 2022 reports, the FTC also analyzed a random sample of 1,000 scam text messages and found that many of them attempted to impersonate well-known businesses.

Specifically, the most common type of scam text were those made to look like fraud alerts from well-known banks. The texts create a sense of urgency, telling the recipient they need to verify a large transaction by tapping on an included tiny link. Those who do respond are connected to fake bank workers.

The use of fake-bank texts has jumped twentyfold since 2019, the FTC says.

Other text scams often reported to the FTC include messages claiming to offer a free gift, often from a wireless phone carrier or retailer, messages pretending to be from UPS or FedEx saying there’s a problem with a package delivery, along with bogus job offers and fake Amazon security alerts.

Tips on avoiding SMS scam messages

Be on the lookout for suspicious messages. Don’t click the links inside a suspicious text or otherwise engage the sender. Instead, report the message by forwarding it to 7726 (SPAM). If you think a link might be legitimate, go directly to the company’s website instead of clicking on the included link.

Don’t mess with the scammers. Some people like to mess with the people behind the scams by texting them back and leading them on. This is a very bad idea. If nothing else, it lets the scammer know that you’re a real person. But don’t worry if you open up a scam text on your phone. Unless you click on a link or download an attachment, you’re not in danger of being hacked.

Think before you hand over your number. Retailers and other companies love to collect them, but do they really need yours? Like your email addresses, if your phone number is in a company database that gets hacked, it’ll likely end up sold to cybercriminals for use in these kinds of attacks. Just like the rest of your personal information, the fewer people who have it, the better.

Keep your private info private. Never provide personal or financial information in response to an SMS request.

Technologies

You Can’t Trust Your Car’s Driving Assistance System Yet, AAA Report Finds

Both hands-on and hands-off systems required human intervention to avoid accidents in this study.

Technologies

Google’s AI Mode Is Getting New Agentic Features for Restaurant Reservations and More

AI Mode can now do most of the work to find dinner reservations for you.

Google’s AI Mode is getting new agentic capabilities and expanding to 180 new countries and territories around the world, Google announced Thursday. AI Mode allows you to ask questions directly to Google and it’ll kick off a series of searches on your behalf. From there, it will surface relevant information to your query without the need to do any of the deep research yourself. It changes the way you search for things online, and it’s getting even smarter with this latest rollout.

Powered by DeepMind’s Project Mariner, the latest additions bring us further into the agentic AI future we’ve been promised for some time, directly from a search box. Instead of just finding things for you, AI Mode can now do things for you, like finding dinner reservations, flights or concert tickets. The update also brings personalized recommendations and link-sharing capabilities for easier collaboration with friends and family.

Most of the new features are either limited to premium AI subscribers and tucked behind an experiment in Google Labs, but it might not take long before they’re a standard part of your future search experience.

Google did not immediately respond to CNET’s request for further comment.

Restaurant recommendations

Instead of searching for restaurant reservations and then clicking on a specific website to make a reservation, AI Mode surfaces everything you need to complete the action right there. Since it’s contextually aware, you can add specificities to your query that a typical Google search wouldn’t handle well.

You can add the type of cuisine, number of people, time and location to a single query, and AI Mode will get to work and display real-time restaurant reservation time slots to choose from.

Google says it’s partnered with OpenTable, Resy, Tock, Ticketmaster and several other companies to make finding and doing what you want easier, since you won’t have to put in the legwork yourself.

This feature is currently rolling out to Google AI Ultra subscribers in the US who have enabled the specific experiment in Labs.

Personalized recommendations

Another experiment that’s currently available in the US (that also needs to be enabled in Labs) is personalized recommendations. Google says it’s starting with dining-related recommendations, which implies more options will be on the way in the future.

The experiment will use your past conversations with AI Mode, places you’ve interacted with on Search and Maps to provide suggestions tailored specifically to you.

Share AI Mode links with others for collaboration

If you’re planning a vacation or a party, you can now share your research directly with others with a new link-sharing feature built into AI Mode. People who interact with the link will be sent to the last response sent by AI Mode and can continue the conversation on their own to do more exploration on the topic. The original sender of the links can manage them and delete them at any time.

For more, don’t miss everything Google announced at its Pixel 10 event.

Technologies

IPhone or Android, Here’s How to Finally Escape That Endless Group Chat

Done with a group chat? Here’s how to ghost it on any service.

One reason people prefer group chats in Apple’s iMessage or RCS texting is the extra control and security these platforms provide. If everyone in your group is using iPhones, or if you’re on Android chatting through RCS, you’ll get features like typing indicators, high-quality media sharing, and the option to mute or leave a conversation when you need fewer notifications.

The biggest advantage is privacy. Both iMessage and RCS group chats offer end-to-end encryption, so your conversations stay secure. The only time that doesn’t apply is when a thread includes a mix of iPhone and Android users, which limits encryption support.

Knowing these differences can help you manage your chats more effectively, whether you’re keeping up with friends, planning events, or just looking for a little more control over your notifications.

And with RCS support with iOS 18, group chats that include a mix of iPhone and Android participants have more features than ever — but it’s not at the level you’ll experience when a conversation is fully on iMessage or Google Messages. «Green bubble chats» from an iPhone to an Android phone can now include typing indicators, higher-quality media and easier group chats.

However, RCS conversations between the iPhone and Android phones don’t include encryption now, but it should be added in a future update. This will hopefully give these conversations a similar level of privacy that we expect when using chat services like iMessage, WhatsApp or Signal.

Regardless of how you’re in a group chat with others, you can leave a chat. Here are the steps to leave any conversation from your phone’s texting app, regardless of whether it’s happening on iMessage, RCS or as a mixed MMS chat.

Don’t miss any of CNET’s unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add us as a preferred Google source on Chrome.

Leaving group chats on an iPhone

You can leave group conversations on your iPhone in two ways. You can either mute a chat,which keeps you in a conversation but you no longer receive notifications about it, or you can outright leave and no longer have access to the chat.

On an iPhone, open Messages and go to the chat thread you want to leave. At the top of the screen are conversation controls, a group of icons with the participants. Tap this to open a pop-up menu. As long as your conversation has four or more participants, iOS gives you the ability to tap Leave this Conversation with red text. If your chat has three or fewer participants, though, the option is grayed out, but you can tap Hide Alerts to prevent the conversation from notifying you further. Tapping Hide Alerts also allows you to mute a conversation, letting you keep access to a chat without necessarily leaving it. These steps apply to both iMessage conversations and to those over RCS.

Hide and block MMS chats on an iPhone

Although you can’t officially leave MMS group chats, you can hide or block the conversation. It’s not as good as outright leaving a conversation (other participants will still see you as in it), but you at least have no personal evidence of the conversation continuing.

On an iPhone, visit the group chat and tap the conversation controls. Instead of seeing Leave this conversation, you will see the option to Delete and Block this conversation. If you’d rather just mute the conversation instead of deleting and blocking it, you can hit Hide Alerts to mute it.

Leave group chats on an Android phone

On an Android phone using Google Messages, visit the chat thread you want to leave. Tap the conversation’s name to bring up the Group Details menu. Within this menu is the Leave Group button. Unlike with iMessage, you can leave chats with as few as three participants.

If you want to just mute notifications, tap Notifications on the Group Details screen to bring up a window with notifications controls. This includes options to make the conversation stay Silent to prevent it from ringing your chat, and if you tap Lock Screen, a pop-up menu will give you the option to prevent notifications. Tap Don’t show notifications at all to enable.

Hide and block MMS chats on an Android phone

On an Android phone with Google Messages, follow the same steps to access options for controlling notifications. This includes visiting the MMS chat thread and then tapping either the name of the conversation or the names of the participants at the top to bring up the Group Details menu. You won’t see a Leave Group option like you did with an RCS thread, but you do get the same ability to tap Notifications to access controls for hiding the conversation. This includes the same options for turning the conversation to Silent and to select Don’t show notifications at all.

SMS vs. MMS vs. RCS

SMS stands for Short Message Service and debuted in 1992. Text messages are limited to 160 characters. MMS stands for Multimedia Messaging Service and supports sending photos, videos or other files and messages longer than 160 characters. MMS supports a group of people chatting in a single conversation thread, while SMS can text multiple people at once but is sent as individual messages to each person. RCS, which launched 15 years ago, is short for Rich Communication Services and can show typing indicators, read receipts and has end-to-end encryption.

While cross-platform chat apps like WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram have better controls for conversations, encryption and privacy, regardless of the type of phone participants are using, they don’t support SMS, MMS or RCS. That’s why the default messaging app on most phones is still widely used, even if it means that a group chat is on a less feature-filled, unsecured standard like MMS.