Short Message Service (SMS) Phishing Attacks and Defenses: A Comprehensive Review

Abstract SMS Phishing (also known as 'smishing') is a growing deceptive social engineering (SE) attack that leverages mobile SMS to conduct cybercrimes such as stealing sensitive information or spreading malware by tricking users into interacting with attackers' messages (e.g., responding to or clicking URLs). This threat has increased rapidly in recent years, causing \$639 million in financial losses for United States users in 2025 alone. This threat is also evolving rapidly, meaning that attackers continually adapt their tactics, reshaping the landscape. There is a significant body of literature on investigating smishing attacks and defenses. However, there is no systematic review that reflects the current attack and defense landscape along with available resources (i.e., relevant datasets). This motivates us to systematize the current smishing research efforts, including the following four research pillars: (a) \textit{user perception and susceptibility}, (b) \textit{attack characterization}, (c) \textit{defense landscape}, and (d) \textit{smishing datasets}. This leads us to propose new research directions to mitigate smishing attacks effectively.