Police have arrested and charged three men with 44 counts for allegedly running an SMS blaster operation in downtown Toronto, a first in Canada per the police report. The scheme, initiated in November 2025, involved sending spam messages to tens of thousands of devices over several months, according to the Toronto Police Service. SMS blasters spoof cell towers, sending out stronger signals to nearby devices and directing them to connect with the blaster. This allows mass texting of phishing links mimicking login pages to steal credentials, said Detective Sergeant Lindsay Riddell. The blaster disrupts nearby communications and 911 services. While authorities shared a similar device photo from the UK, they withheld the Toronto device image for safety. Reportedly custom-built, the SMS blaster was mobile, operated from a vehicle around Toronto. A 2024 Thailand case saw a similar operation where gang members sent nearly a million messages from a truck in Bangkok over a few days. Users can guard against such attacks by disabling 2G connectivity or enabling Lockdown Mode on Apple devices.
Police Arrest SMS Blaster Group for Sending Malicious Messages to Thousands in Toronto
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