Several employees at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau reported receiving fake texts on their personal phones purportedly from their boss, CFPB Director Rohit Chopra.
The CFPB's internal service desk on Wednesday alerted the bureau's staff that "text messages are being sent to employee personal phone numbers claiming to be from Director Chopra," according to a copy of the internal CFPB email obtained by American Banker. Employees who received the texts were advised to report the alleged "smishing attack," a form of phishing that uses mobile phones as a platform to gather personal information.
So-called "boss text" scams are fairly common but it is still unclear how fraudsters managed to obtain the personal phone numbers of CFPB staffers. In a "boss text" scam, the sender claims to be a boss asking for help, typically an urgent request for money.
"Unfortunately, scammers target many American businesses and organizations with this type of attack," a CFPB spokesman said. "We have no indication that this is anything other than a bad actor seeking to mislead or trick people into providing their information or otherwise profit financially."
The spokesman said there are no indications that the text messages "are the result of any system compromise, and no CFPB systems or data were affected."
The scam is unrelated to an employee
The employee no longer works at the CFPB but it is not known if charges have been filed against the former employee. The Office of the Inspector General for the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the CFPB declined to comment.
