There’s nothing worse than experiencing the excitement of a buzz from your phone indicating the arrival of a new text message… only to discover it’s not from your business partner or a client, but rather an anonymous individual or company trying to sell you something or, worse, acting as a Trojan horse to install malware, steal your identity or access your money within the business.
As such, spam texts are not just annoying, they’re potentially costly and dangerous – and they’re also extremely commonplace; according to a 2022 report, almost 90 billion spam texts were sent in the USA in 2021 alone. So how can you go about protecting yourself and your business from them?
Fortunately, there are a number of tactics and techniques you can employ to reduce your exposure. While it’s impossible to guarantee you’ll never receive another spam text again, the following hints and tips will limit the number arriving to your device significantly.
Do not engage
Firstly, you should take care not to respond to text messages, nor interact with them in any way by clicking links or attachments. That’s because these can contain malware which mines information on your phone or ransomware which freezes applications until you pay the requested amount.
Even in less malicious cases, responding – even to stay STOP or something similar – simply confirms that your number is a legitimate one and encourages the spammer to pass it on to others within their world, thus increasing the likelihood of receiving more texts in the future.
Block and report
While it’s not advisable to engage directly with the sender of the message, there are some actions you can take to help protect yourself and the wider community. The first of these involves blocking the number and reporting the incident to the relevant authorities who can then take steps to prevent further activity. The exact method of doing so will differ depending on the make and model of your device, but can be easily found by investigating the options encountered via the message itself.
Enable spam protection
The only problem with the above method is that it is really only effective against a single number, and spammers are notorious for manipulating technology so that their messages are sent simultaneously from dozens of different devices.
There are some steps you can do to stop spam calls, texts and emails such as enabling the spam protection settings on your device is already a better method of ensuring that fewer undesirable missives make it through your phone’s defenses. The location of these settings may vary depending on your device’s manufacturer, but you can usually find them in the options menu.
Opt out of data collection
Where do spammers get your details in the first place? One of the chief culprits is your digital footprint online. Data collection is a booming industry these days and every time you visit a website (and do not opt out of their cookie collection policy), brokers can sell your details to the highest bidder.
Fortunately, there are ways to opt out of such schemes even after consenting to them in the first place. It is possible to do it yourself or contract a third-party professional to do the legwork for you.
Be aware to protect your business
Spam texts are highly annoying, but there are avenues available to you which can greatly reduce the number you receive. In the end, by taking your precautions and staying careful, you will be able to protect your business better. Nowadays, protecting one’s business against spam is more important than ever before. It is a new threat that many of us still try to handle in the best way possible, and it is a threat that should not be underestimated.
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