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SMS, BBM or email messages claiming to be from RIM or BlackBerry

Article ID: KB32190

Type: Support Content

Last Modified: 07-12-2012

 

Product(s) Affected:

  • BlackBerry 7 OS and earlier
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  • BlackBerry® smartphones
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Research In Motion® (RIM) is aware that spam in the form of chain messages is sometimes circulated between BlackBerry® smartphone customers, usually with offers of free products or services, or in which information and services are threatened to be erased or removed unless customers do what the message asks. All such chain messages claiming to be from, or associated with, RIM® or BlackBerry® are likely hoaxes. They do not originate from RIM.

At RIM we:

  • Do not ask our customers to forward messages to all of their contacts.
  • Do not send service interruption messages via BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) or SMS without also posting official information on a RIM-owned web site.
  • Do not threaten to erase information.
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Hoax messages are unfortunately an industry-wide issue. Any social messaging application on any platform, mobile or PC, could potentially be used to attempt to convince its customers to forward messages to one or more of their contacts or click on links to web sites that contain malicious content.
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RIM recommends that its customers simply ignore the messages and do not forward them or respond to them. If a suspicious message contains a link to a RIM website, RIM recommends that its customers check the official RIM corporate site for more information by entering http://www.rim.com/ into the address window of their browser rather than follow any link contained in the message.

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