New name for an old problem?
Scam calls are a form of fraud that aims to get your personal information, such as passwords, bank account details, and other confidential material that you don’t want to fall into the wrong hands. Scam calls are known as vishing.
The term vishing is a combination of the words voice and phishing. Phishing is a method widely used by cybercriminals to steal their victims’ personal information or to infect their devices with malware such as Trojans. Emails are the primary form of phishing attacks, but scammers and cybercriminals use phone calls for vishing. The scam doesn’t necessarily have to take place on the internet, but even your old landline phone is a potential channel through which criminals can threaten your cybersecurity. In fact, it is a new name for an old problem – telephone scams, using ever more sophisticated methods to fool the target.
How scammers use technology to deceive
Identifying a phishing scam can be tricky. For one thing, you can’t always tell if a call is a scam just by looking at the number. Using technologies such as VoiP (Voice over Internet Protocol) and IVR (Interactive Voice Response), scammers can easily target many victims around the world. Another common method used by cybercriminals is to use false identities to trick their victims into revealing confidential information. If the victim believes they are speaking to someone they trust, they are more likely to comply and do what the caller asks.
How cybercriminals obtain your phone number
One way fraudsters can get hold of victims’ phone numbers is by looking for numbers in data leaked in data breaches. Scammers can also use phishing attacks to trick victims into giving out their phone numbers. If someone is willing to give out their phone number easily, it is a good indication that they may also be vulnerable to a phishing attack.
If you are worried about being targeted by online scammers over the phone, you can make your phone number private. You can also minimise the risk of falling victim to a phishing attack by being careful where you give out your phone number. By limiting the information that different mobile applications can access, such as your address book, you can prevent other people’s numbers from falling into the wrong hands.
Vishing targets: individuals and businesses
Whether you are an individual or a large organisation, both are attractive targets for vishing scams. Cybercriminals try to steal information from companies and businesses through employees at various levels. For example, a scammer may contact you claiming to be your manager and then ask you to pay an invoice or download software. Unfortunately, many unsuspecting victims do as their “manager” tells them to do.
The growing sophistication of vishing attacks
As technology advances and artificial intelligence and machine learning methods come into play, phone scams are even harder to detect. Although it is an old way of trying to trick people with phone calls, today’s scammers have a vast arsenal of different and increasingly sophisticated methods at their disposal to trick victims into falling for these scams.
