Chinese language Improvements Spawn Wave of Toll Phishing By way of SMS – Krebs on Safety
Residents throughout the US are being inundated with textual content messages purporting to return from toll street operators like E-ZPass, warning that recipients face fines if a delinquent toll price stays unpaid. Researchers say the surge in SMS spam coincides with new options added to a preferred industrial phishing package offered in China that makes it easy to arrange convincing lures spoofing toll street operators in a number of U.S. states.
Final week, the Massachusetts Division of Transportation (MassDOT) warned residents to be looking out for a brand new SMS phishing or “smishing” rip-off concentrating on customers of EZDriveMA, MassDOT’s all digital tolling program. Those that fall for the rip-off are requested to offer cost card knowledge, and finally will probably be requested to provide a one-time password despatched by way of SMS or a cell authentication app.
Stories of comparable SMS phishing assaults in opposition to prospects of different U.S. state-run toll services surfaced across the similar time because the MassDOT alert. Individuals in Florida reported receiving SMS phishing that spoofed Sunpass, Florida’s pay as you go toll program.
This phishing module for spoofing MassDOT’s EZDrive toll system was supplied on Jan. 10, 2025 by a China-based SMS phishing service referred to as “Lighthouse.”
In Texas, residents mentioned they obtained textual content messages about unpaid tolls with the North Texas Toll Authority. Comparable reviews got here from readers in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Minnesota, and Washington. That is certainly not a complete listing.

A brand new module from the Lighthouse SMS phishing package launched Jan. 14 targets prospects of the North Texas Toll Authority (NTTA).
In every case, the emergence of those SMS phishing assaults coincided with the discharge of latest phishing package capabilities that carefully mimic these toll operator web sites as they seem on cell units. Notably, not one of the phishing pages will even load except the web site detects that the customer is coming from a cell gadget.
Ford Merrill works in safety analysis at SecAlliance, a CSIS Security Group firm. Merrill mentioned the amount of SMS phishing assaults spoofing toll street operators skyrocketed after the New Yr, when at the very least one Chinese language cybercriminal group identified for promoting subtle SMS phishing kits started providing new phishing pages designed to spoof toll operators in numerous U.S. states.
In response to Merrill, a number of China-based cybercriminals are promoting distinct SMS-based phishing kits that every have tons of or 1000’s of shoppers. The final word purpose of those kits, he mentioned, is to phish sufficient data from victims that their cost playing cards may be added to cell wallets and used to purchase items at bodily shops, on-line, or to launder cash via shell firms.

A element of the Chinese language SMS phishing package Lighthouse made to focus on prospects of The Toll Roads, which refers to a number of state routes via Orange County, Calif.
Merrill mentioned the completely different purveyors of those SMS phishing instruments historically have impersonated delivery firms, customs authorities, and even governments with tax refund lures and visa or immigration renewal scams concentrating on individuals who could also be dwelling overseas or new to a rustic.
“What we’re seeing with these tolls scams is only a continuation of the Chinese language smishing teams rotating from bundle redelivery schemes to toll street scams,” Merrill mentioned. “Each considered one of us by now’s sick and bored with receiving these bundle smishing assaults, so now it’s a brand new twist on an current rip-off.”
In October 2023, KrebsOnSecurity wrote a few large uptick in SMS phishing scams concentrating on U.S. Postal Service prospects. That story revealed the surge was tied to improvements launched by “Chenlun,” a mainland China-based proprietor of a preferred phishing package and repair. On the time, Chenlun had simply launched new phishing pages made to impersonate postal companies in the US and at the very least a dozen different nations.
SMS phishing kits are hardly new, however Merrill mentioned Chinese language smishing teams not too long ago have launched improvements in deliverability, by extra seamlessly integrating their spam messages with Apple’s iMessage know-how, and with RCS, the equal “wealthy textual content” messaging functionality constructed into Android units.
“Whereas conventional smishing kits relied closely on SMS for supply, these days the actors make heavy use of iMessage and RCS as a result of telecom operators can’t filter them they usually probably have the next success charge with these supply channels,” he mentioned.
It stays unclear how the phishers have chosen their targets, or from the place their knowledge could also be sourced. A discover from MassDOT cautions that “the focused telephone numbers appear to be chosen at random and are usually not uniquely related to an account or utilization of toll roads.”
Certainly, one reader shared on Mastodon yesterday that they’d obtained considered one of these SMS phishing assaults spoofing an area toll operator, once they didn’t even personal a automobile.
Focused or not, these phishing web sites are harmful as a result of they’re operated dynamically in real-time by criminals. When you obtain considered one of these messages, simply ignore it or delete it, however please don’t go to the phishing website. The FBI asks that earlier than you bin the missives, take into account submitting a criticism with the company’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), together with the telephone quantity the place the textual content originated, and the web site listed throughout the textual content.