I never received such an SMS message, but many commenters here are claiming that when you start replying, you can see the name/number you are replying to. SMS is easier to spoof certainly, just like caller IDs in phone calls, but none of these are bugs on iOS. The system was designed to be this way decades ago. I don't know why phone companies decided that it was a good idea to allow caller IDs to be changed, not just blocked, but they did. That is not Apple's fault.
If you have IOs 17 and the recipient does not and you send a large quantity text over 100 characters in 1 bar or less service this will lead to spoofing that text 50-150 times. Closing out your text app will reset this. Update: you will not incur multiple charges for the text just will get locked out by said user![]()
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Jailbreak hacker and security researcher pod2g today revealed a newly-discovered security issue in all versions of iOS that could allow malicious parties to spoof SMS messages, making a recipient think that a message came from a trusted sender when it in fact came from the malicious party.
The issue is related to iOS's handling of User Data Header (UDH) information, an optional section of a text payload that allows users to specify certain information such as changing the reply-to number on a message to something other than the sending number. The iPhone's handling of this optional information could leave recipients open to targeted SMS spoofing attacks.pod2g highlights several ways in which malicious parties could take advantage of this flaw, including phishing attempts linking users to sites collecting personal information or spoofing messages for the purposes of creating false evidence or gaining a recipient's trust to enable further nefarious action.
In many cases the malicious party would need to know the name and number of a trusted contact of the recipient in order for their efforts to be effective, but the phishing example shows how malicious parties could cast broad nets hoping to snare users by pretending to be a common bank or other institution. But with the issue resulting in recipients being shown the reply-to address, an attack could be discovered or thwarted simply by replying to the message, as the return message would go to the familiar contact rather than the malicious one.
Article Link: iPhone Security Issue Opens Door to SMS Spoofing
