Vishing is the fraudulent practice of making phone calls or leaving voice messages pretending to be from reputable companies in order to have individuals give out personal information, up to and including banking or credit card numbers. This is similar to phishing, but vishing is conducted over the phone instead of email. In recent years, vishing has been combined with website hacks that display a virus warning from “Microsoft” and ask you to call the Microsoft Support line to remove the virus immediately or suffer DIRE consequences. This combined attack preys on the elderly and less computer savvy individuals and has cost consumers millions of dollars.
What can your SMB do?
Vishing is on the rise, nearly half (49%) of information security businesses experienced vishing in 2018. Vishers will keep attacking due to the lack of knowledge of the threat by the general public, according to ProofPoint, 63% of the public they surveyed had no clue what vishing was. What can be done?
- Train your employees on how to spot and avoid vishing attacks.
- Register with a paid robocall blocking service
- Inform your company’s IT department about any potential scam calls or emails.
- File an official complaint with the FTC and local, state, or federal law enforcement agencies.
Related Terms: Phishing, Spear-Phishing, Smishing, Whaling
Source: Oxford Dictionary