Operation Road Trap: Inside the 79,000-Message Smishing Wave Hitting Drivers Worldwide

Bitdefender Labs uncovered Operation Road Trap, an ongoing global smishing campaign (active since at least Dec 2025) that sends tens of thousands of fraudulent SMS messages impersonating transport and parking authorities to trick victims into paying fines or handing over financial details. The campaign uses sender-ID spoofing, rapid domain generation, shortened/misspelled links, and tactics like prompting users to reply “Y” to increase credibility; victims span a dozen countries and the operation is linked to significant financial losses from text-based scams.