SMS blockers, a new form of cyber attacks, are designed to force victims send SMS text messages to premium numbers.

"SMS blockers, or simply blockers, as they're known, are a clever evolution of the old ransomware or scareware tactic of demanding a payment in exchange for either removing some malware on a PC or decrypting the user's hard drive, which the ransomware encrypted in the first place," writes threatpost's Dennis Fisher. "These tactics have been extremely profitable for scammers in the last four or five years, earning some gangs millions of dollars per year."

"In recent months there has been a major uptick in the volume of SMS blockers hitting users in Eastern Europe -- particularly Russia -- and parts of Asia," Fisher writes. "The scam is as simple as it is effective: A victim visits a malicious site, or perhaps a legitimate site that has been compromised and loaded with attack code, and her machine is infected with a piece of malware. The victim will then start seeing dialog boxes with a message demanding payment in order to disinfect the machine."

Click here to read the threatpost article.