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Ask HN: Recent uptick in spam emails and text messages?

Has anyone noticed an uptick in spam emails and text messages the past few months?

I’ve consistently been getting ~1-2 spam emails per day and ~1 bogus text message.

The spam all seem to be imitating retail stores, offering some promo.

I use gmail and iOS.

( 18 comments | 2 points | on HN )
Re:Ask HN: Recent uptick in spam emails and text messages? by permo-w on Sunday October 23, 2022 @10:14PM (#33312290)
I’ve gotten a text saying:

“Hi mum I'm texting you off a friends phone I've smashed mine and their phones about to die, can you WhatsApp my new number 07—————- please x”

3 days in a row from 3 different numbers. god knows what scam lies on the other end of that number

Re:Ask HN: Recent uptick in spam emails and text messages? by Trouble_007 on Sunday October 23, 2022 @10:22PM (#33312349)
>scam:'Hi mum I'm texting you off a friends phone I've smashed mine and their phones about to die'< : <https://html.duckduckgo.com/html/?q=scam:'Hi mum I'm texting...>
Re:Ask HN: Recent uptick in spam emails and text messages? by JoshAtticus on Sunday October 23, 2022 @10:17PM (#33312316)
I've been getting a LOT of emails about my Apple ID being logged into an iPhone X from Indonesia, when I don't even have one. I also keep getting texts saying your twitter account was locked when I don't have a twitter account either.
Re:Ask HN: Recent uptick in spam emails and text messages? by mdwalters on Monday October 24, 2022 @05:40AM (#33314552)
rip
Re:Ask HN: Recent uptick in spam emails and text messages? by augustuspolius on Sunday October 23, 2022 @11:04PM (#33312555)
I don't get any spam texts but saw an uptick about a month ago in fake emails from a range of retailers. Always an order confirmation for some expensive gadget with a message prompting me to call a fake number if I have any questions. I am using Startmail and they seem to have caught up on this scam.
Re:Ask HN: Recent uptick in spam emails and text messages? by kaveet on Sunday October 23, 2022 @11:16PM (#33312628)
On iOS I’ve been using Bouncer to filter out SMS and iMessage spam using regexes. It’s been surprisingly effective to filter out messages that contain non-https URLs:

https://github.com/afterxleep/Bouncer

Re:Ask HN: Recent uptick in spam emails and text messages? by highwayman47 on Sunday October 23, 2022 @11:23PM (#33312656)
Yes, last 4 months: I am getting 100+ spam emails a day, filtering catches about 90% but still that's 10 that get through EACH DAY. It used to be NONE! I now get 3-4 spam texts per week, previously it would be about 3-4 a year.
Re:Ask HN: Recent uptick in spam emails and text messages? by faebi on Monday October 24, 2022 @12:28AM (#33312940)
Oh, I‘m not alone! It‘s completely out of control for me. My email has been exposed for 1.5 decades now, but the last few months have been on another level. Maybe we are targeted as good value victims ?
Re:Ask HN: Recent uptick in spam emails and text messages? by api on Sunday October 23, 2022 @11:26PM (#33312669)
I get heaps more marketing emails than usual and many read like the products of a GPT-3 type system. They probably are.

AI generated “personalized” spam is probably hard to filter.

Re:Ask HN: Recent uptick in spam emails and text messages? by MerelyMortal on Sunday October 23, 2022 @11:42PM (#33312735)
Not really.

Fastmail. Unique emails for businesses, a personal email that was leaked a while back, and a gmail with a somewhat common name that's about 18 years old.

Android.

Re:Ask HN: Recent uptick in spam emails and text messages? by doktorhladnjak on Monday October 24, 2022 @01:32AM (#33313247)
I’m definitely getting spam texts out of nowhere after not really getting these in the past. They’re mostly of the sexual performance, obvious scam with misspellings variety. Like spam email at its zenith in the early oughts.
Re:Ask HN: Recent uptick in spam emails and text messages? by mrWiz on Monday October 24, 2022 @01:35PM (#33319726)
That matches my experience to a T. For years I was getting a spam SMS once a month, at most. Recently I've started getting a few per day, mostly for dick pills.
Re:Ask HN: Recent uptick in spam emails and text messages? by pieterr on Monday October 24, 2022 @02:09AM (#33313414)
Apple has (re)enabled the downloading of remote content in the Apple Mail apps, as part of their recent "Protect Mail Activity" feature. Since then I received more spam mail. I have now disabled this feature, and reenabled "Block All Remote Content" again, resulting in less spam after a while.

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/mail/mlhlae4a4fe6/mac

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2022/05/apple-mail-no...

Re:Ask HN: Recent uptick in spam emails and text messages? by winrid on Monday October 24, 2022 @02:53AM (#33313670)
More very obvious spam has been making it through the Gmail filters lately.

Also past few months I've been getting a few spam texts a week in Chinese (although native Chinese people tell me they're Taiwanese scammers... :) ).

They're not bots, either. I just reply with funny pictures.

Re:Ask HN: Recent uptick in spam emails and text messages? by modeopfer on Monday October 24, 2022 @04:44AM (#33314273)
Funny, I just wanted to post an Ask HN to inquire how businesses deal with the increasing amount of spam.

At my place of work, we currently get around 40 spam messages per outwards-facing email.

How do you deal with that? What software solutions exist to filter spam that work well with Microsoft Exchange?

Re:Ask HN: Recent uptick in spam emails and text messages? by Rebelgecko on Monday October 24, 2022 @05:58AM (#33314658)
I've been getting a ton of spam texts, almost daily over the last 3 months. It's a mix of housing speculators, political donation requests, and sex stuff.
Re:Ask HN: Recent uptick in spam emails and text messages? by the_only_law on Monday October 24, 2022 @08:49AM (#33315976)
I have noticed a ton of spam slipping through gmail as of recent. Same exact format as you describe. For some reason they appear to mostly be related to airlines or tools for some reason.
Re:Ask HN: Recent uptick in spam emails and text messages? by bluedino on Monday October 24, 2022 @09:34AM (#33316398)
Election spam text time in the USA