smishing

 Smishing is the use of SMS messaging for fraudulent purposes, so it breaks down into SMS and phishing, which Macquarie Dictionary defines as:

 a form of internet fraud in which an email, text message or social media message purporting to be from a legitimate sender, such as a bank, government institution, etc., encourages the recipient to provide personal information, passwords, etc. ostensibly to confirm or update information which the legitimate organisation already has.

 Phishing is a blend of PH standing for ‘password harvesting’ and fishing, the general term for trying your luck to get something.

 Smishing was first noticed in 2018 but 2020 seems to be the year in which it has become a major source of concern in Australia.  The person who carries out this activity is called a smisher.  A variant spelling is SMiShing which attempts to retain the link with SMS but not many people have adopted this.