Verizon blames ‘bad actors’ for the spam text you got from your own number

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Yesterday, I wrote about receiving a text that looked like it came from my phone number. It initially looked like a random, spoofed message, but now it looks like a focused effort targeting one of the largest telecoms in the United States. The carrier is aware of the situation and is investigating with the help of US law enforcement.

The bad actors are sending text messages to some customers which appear to come from their own number, according to Rich Young. The customer is being worked on by the company to prevent activity that is related to the text messages.

Since we published our story, many more customers have reported receiving the same text message with a link at the end. Channel One Russia is a Russian state media network.

As many US companies remain on high alert for potential cyberattacks from Russia over the severe US sanctions that resulted, there has been a flood of texts.

Other major US carriers have not received the same mass wave of text messages that are spoofed with customers' own numbers, leading to some speculation of an internal attack. According to Young, the network has not been compromised.

I'm still seeing reports of people getting these messages, so I'm not sure if it's the case or not. If you get one, the best thing you can do is destroy it.