Credit unions were a favorite target of a specialized kind of text-to-phone phishing attacks (often called "smishing") in the first few months of the year, accounting for fully 83% of the individual brands targeted, according to online security specialist Internet Identity (IID).

Overall numbers of smishing attacks against financial institutions dropped dramatically in the first quarter of the year from the previous quarter, the Tacoma, Wash., company said, but remained the same against credit unions, at about 40 individual cases at one of the top three cell phone carriers alone.

Smishing attacks involve sending a text message, usually in a random pattern against a set of area codes, designed to trick recipients into calling a provided phone number and then to give up personal information such as account credentials and social security numbers.