Hong Kong Police arrested a 25 year old local man on July 23 after catching him driving through the northern district of Sheung Shui with an SMS blaster operating inside his car. Officers seized the SMS blaster and a mobile phone used to control it. Initial forensic analysis showed the SMS blaster had sent more than 1,000 smishing messages.

The arrest followed the theft of approximately HKD1.1mn (USD141,000) from the account of a customer of an online investment company. The victim received an SMS that impersonated the company and claimed their account details needed updating. A link took the victim to a fake login page, where they disclosed their username, password and SMS one-time password. The criminals used those details to access the genuine investment account and conduct unauthorized transactions.

Police said this SMS blaster forced nearby phones to connect using 2G. The arrest occurred exactly one month after China Mobile Hong Kong, the territory’s last provider of 2G service, switched off its 2G network on June 23. Closing the genuine network did not prevent the attack because compatible handsets could still receive the 2G signal transmitted by the SMS blaster.

Cease to resist, giving my goodbye
Drive my car into the ocean
You’ll think I’m dead, but I sail away
On a wave of mutilation

This is the final Commsrisk article. The website will continue to host the Commsrisk Global Fraud Dashboard under the stewardship of James Greenley, the software engineer who created it, for as long as he can find financial backers to support that work. Presenting reams of objective data compiled from varied international sources is the best way to build on the platform constructed during the first two decades of this website. Facts and figures need to rule; words are too messy and too easily twisted. My regular narratives about the communications sector end now, not with regret, but with pleasure. I am glad to be released to live a different life to the one that has consumed so much of me.