VoIP-’Voice Phishing’ aka Vishing
The section of population which uses or misuses the innovations in technology, the most have to be the scam artists. Vishing or Voice Phishing is the latest example of the misuse of Voice over Internet Protocol-phones to steal personal financial information. There are basically two ways in which scam artists misuse this technology.
In the online version, scammers send a blast e-mail disguised to appear as a genuine e-mail from a financial institution. This e-mail warns of a security problem with the victim’s account and provides a number to be called in order to clear out matters. Victims who have an idea about phishing, feel safe calling a phone line rather than clicking on some link provided in an e-mail. Once the call is made (numbers do appear to be toll-free) the victim is directed to an automated machine which guides them and asks to enter account number, passwords and other private information for “security reasons”.
In the other scenario ‘vishers’ use automated dialing programs to call up their victims. Victims are then routed either to a auto-answer machine or to live employees to inform them about the breach in their accounts. When all the personal financial information is received from the victim this information is then digitally transcribed to the scammer’s computer.
Even as such vishing scams seem to be fool-proof, there are some security checks which can ensure safety. Some of such checks are mentioned as under:
1.Vishers or vishing e-mails try to rattle their victims into divulging personal information as soon as possible. There will always be a sense of urgency in such calls or e-mails. First tell-tale sign of a vishing attack.
2.If one does receive any such call, do not provide any information. Instead call up the number at the back of your debit/credit card and inform them of such an incident.
3.Financial institutions and banks do not use pre-recorded messages for security issues. If at all a bank finds out about a suspicious activity in an account, they will not ask for personal information for security reasons as they already hold all necessary information.
4.Lastly, do not call any number purely on basis of its area code. Vishers are able to hack into caller ID systems and assign area codes.
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