--- title: "Scammers Are Now Driving Around With Fake Cell Towers That Blast 100,000 Texts Per Hour" description: "These \"SMS blasters\" can trick your phone into connecting to them, bombarding anyone in the vicinity with scam texts." date: "2025-09-20" modified: "2025-09-20" authors: - name: "Frank Landymore" job_title: "Contributing Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/flandymore" url: "https://futurism.com/scammers-fake-cell-towers" categories: - "Advanced Transport" - "Cybersecurity" - "Future Society" tags: - "cybersecurity" - "phones" - "scams" --- # Scammers Are Now Driving Around With Fake Cell Towers That Blast 100,000 Texts Per Hour ![These "SMS blasters" can trick your phone into connecting to them, bombarding anyone in the vicinity with scam texts.]() *\Image: Getty / Futurism\* Leave it to phone scammers to innovate new ways to be as annoying — and scummy — as humanly possible. These cybercriminals are no longer content with just sending you the odd phishing text or two. As [*Wired* ]()[reports](), more and more of them are using so-called "SMS blasters" that basically act as a portable cell tower, tricking your phones into connecting with them as they cruise by. The scammers walk or drive around with the devices, firing out a ludicrous volume of SMS messages that contain dangerous links. And we do mean ludicrous. Last year, Thai police [reported]() that one device was capable of sending 100,000 texts per hour. In its short period of operation, police said, it unleashed nearly one million messages. This isn't new tech. But it is "essentially the first time that we have seen large-scale use of mobile radio-transmitting devices by criminal groups," Cathal Mc Daid, vice president of technology at telecommunication and cybersecurity firm Enea, told *Wired*. And the scary thing? You don't need any technical know-how to actually blast the texts. "This has been shown by reports of arrests of people who have been basically paid to drive around areas with SMS blasters in cars or vans," Mc Daid added. One advantage of using SMS blasters is that they can impersonate any sender. Also, the scammers don't need your number to target your phone. That's because they're a type of cell-site simulator that can force any phone in its vicinity, which is anywhere between 500 to 2,000 yards, to connect with it. First, it lures your mobile device in with a legit-seeming 4G signal, then knocks you down to a less secure 2G connection. "The 2G fake base station is then used to send... malicious SMSes to the mobile phones initially captured by the 4G false base station," Mc Daid told *Wired*. "The whole process — 4G capture, downgrade to 2G, sending of SMS and release — can take less than 10 seconds." This all happens outside the purview of actual mobile networks — so providers are effectively powerless to stop the scams or monitor these communications as they take place. Some evolutionary pressure may have contributed to this devious innovation. As *Wired* notes, Philippines telecom provider Globe banned SMS messages that contained URLs to crack down on scams. That, in turn, pushed cybercriminals to resort to using the blasters. After first popping up in Asia-Pacific nations, the SMS blasting schemes have now spread to Western Europe and South America, head of industry security at the mobile operator industry group the GSMA Samantha Kight told the magazine. Police in the UK, for example, [arrested a man]() in June who was found with an SMS blaster in the trunk of his car; allegedly, he was driving around London for nearly a week while sending out thousands of nefarious messages. One thing that hasn't changed: the actual texts themselves. At the end of the day, the scammers are still relying on you clicking on extremely suspicious links — so stay vigilant. **More on techie tricksters:** *[Woman Sends Money to "Stranded Astronaut" So He Can "Buy Oxygen"]()* ## Author At Futurism, my work has often centered on bringing a sense of clarity and insight to complex topics ranging from the regulation of emerging technologies to the esoteric ideologies of Silicon Valley executives, while striving not to lose the poetic sense of awe inspired by often-obscure fields like astrophysics and quantum computing. I broke the story of CNET using AI to produce articles that turned out to be riddled with factual errors and plagiarism — a dam-breaking inflection point, as I've reported, that's inspired copycats and endless discourse while beguiling stakeholders ranging from tech giants to purveyors of spam around the web. My work at Futurism has been cited by publications including CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, Vice, Gizmodo, Engadget, the Verge, and Vanity Fair. I grew up in locales ranging from India to China, and now live in the exotic suburbs of Virginia. In my free time, I'm an avid reader of weird sci-fi literature, an aficionado of East Asian cinema, and, regrettably, a relapsed gamer. Allegedly, I’m working on a debut novel, currently untitled. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()