'Hey mum, I dropped my phone down the toilet': Investigating Hi Mum and Dad SMS Scams in the United Kingdom
Sharad Agarwal
34th USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security '25) · Day 2 · Fraud, Malware, Spam
This talk, presented by Sharad Agarwal, a final-year PhD candidate at UCL, delves into the pervasive and financially devastating "Hi Mum, I dropped my phone down the toilet" SMS scams prevalent in the United Kingdom. Collaborating with Stop Scams UK, MDI Networks, and UCL, Agarwal’s research sheds light on a sophisticated form of online financial fraud that deviates from traditional SMS phishing. Instead of generic links or requests, these scams leverage emotional manipulation, with fraudsters posing as a child in distress, addressing recipients as "mom" or "dad," and fabricating urgent financial predicaments.
AI review
Competent, methodologically grounded academic work on a financially damaging but technically shallow threat. The empirical rigor — live scammer engagement, HLR analysis, survival analysis on number lifetimes, FCA-categorized mule account mapping — elevates this above a typical awareness talk, but the attack surface here is human psychology and payment rails, not systems. The findings are useful for fraud teams and telecom operators; they won't move the needle for most security researchers.