[ by Melanie Gretchen ] Cell phone users are the latest target of Internet intruders - hackers and spammers - as spammers move on from e-mail providers and the Postal Service to texts, to the dismay of 4.5 billion U.S. cell phone consumers last year, according to Internet market research firm Ferris Research.  With more than 250 million text message-enabled phones, the problem is still in its infancy stage - so to speak - and doesn't come close to the incidence of e-mail spam.  However, cell phone spamming has more than doubled from 2009, when 2.2 billion spam texts were received.  Knowing that technological issues have a tendency to grow exponentially - e.g., "spreading like a brush fire" - this is a problem that can be a significant problem within a short couple of years. Risks: Fraud, Identity Theft. As the popularity of spam rises, so does the number of problem associated with it.  Experts say that, besides marketing spam, smartphone users risk signing up for a bogus, impossible-to-cancel services.  Personal information, like addresses or transaction history, gleaned from offers for a Wal-Mart gift card or a free iPhone in exchange for taking a survey, can be sold to digital marketers or even used to crack bank accounts. Enforcement by regulators is near impossible at this point in time, according to FTC lawyer Christine Todaro.  With the Commission turning to the courts, Ms. Todaro says, "It is becoming very difficult to track down who is sending the spam.  We encourage consumers to file complaints, which helps us track down the spammers, but even then it is a little bit like peeling back an onion." Crackdown Efforts. In the past, replying with "NO" or "STOP" has worked to stop unwanted messages.  These days, however, that same strategy may only serve to confirm that users have a working number, which a spammer can resell. One way the mobile industry is combating this is by joining Cloudmark, a maker of anti-spam software, that offers a new reporting service.  Users can forward mobile spam to "7726" (that number spells SPAM on most keypads), which carriers will use toward blocking numbers. Spammers has responded by turning to large banks of phone numbers, regularly changing the websites they try to get consumers to click, and using "over the top messaging systems," which let them send millions of messages cheaply.  As mobile carriers and filtering software detect when a large volume of spam is sent from one number, spammers switch numbers upon detection. Mobile Spam Has Been Illegal. While mobile spam has been illegal since 2003 under 2 federal laws - the 2003 Can Spam Act and the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, which set up the Do Not Call Registry in 2003 - the major wireless carriers - AT&T, Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile, Dell Mobility, and Verizon Wireless - each offer ways to report the spam-sending numbers on their websites and can block numbers.  Apps for Android phones also provide address text spamming with enhanced spam text filtering. To date, Verizon has brought 20 lawsuits against wireless telemarketers and spammers, most of which have been settled.  For its own part, the FTC tried its first mobile spam case in February 2011 against Phillip Flora of Huntingdon Beach, CA, accusing him of sending more than 5 million text messages over a 40-day period at a "mind-boggling" rate of 85 a minute, according to court documents.  Flora settled the charges that he charged $300 for every 100,000 text messages (on top of what he made from selling cellphone numbers to third parties) for $32,000 and agreed to stop sending spam texts. New Age. After "phishing," e-mail fraud designed to get consumers to reveal their personal information, text spam has been named "smishing." If only "smishing" could be smooshed out... For further details, go to [CNBC, 4/8/12].