(Oregon News Service) October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month and one new scamming method people need to be on the lookout for is "smishing."

The word smishing comes from a combination of SMS -- another name for text messaging -- and phishing. Scammers use text messages to try to steal people's personal information.

Matthew Wilson, vice president of risk and administration for Oregon Community Credit Union, said fraudsters have different ways to scam people with smishing messages.

"[They] send you a message that is either going to ask you directly for information, send you to a website to have you put in information there or to deliver some malware payload onto your device," Wilson outlined.

Wilson pointed out the financial industry has seen a notable increase in smishing scams. The U.S. Secret Service has also issued an alert about how such scams are on the rise. 

Jessa Womack, information security manager for Oregon Community Credit Union, said the urgency conveyed in the messages can scare people into responding.

"Any message that you get that has an action item, just kind of take a deep breath," Womack advised. "See if it makes sense to you. And you can always go directly to the website that you're suspicious of something going on."

Womack added there are ways people can protect themselves. She suggested enabling multifactor authentication for the financial accounts, so logging in requires a password and either a text message or call.

People should also monitor their bank accounts for suspicious activity. Wilson recommended if something does not look right, they should act quickly.

"The fraudsters and scammers out there, they're making victims out of all of us, and we can all fall for a really well-crafted either email or SMS message," Wilson explained. "Don't be embarrassed about it. Pick up the phone, start calling your financial institutions, check your credit reports and allow us to help you."