January 22, 2019
Homefield IT
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Many businesses nowadays are well-armed against email-based phishing scams, which is why scammers have moved over to VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) scams. Through “vishing scams,” hackers can pretend to be bank representatives and convince your employees to provide confidential financial details via a seemingly innocuous VoIP call. Take a look at why vishing is on the rise to understand how to keep your business from falling victim.
VoIP makes it easy to create fake numbers
One of the main reasons vishing scams are increasing in frequency is the ease by which cybercriminals can hide their tracks and escape with minimal risk of detection.
Using a fake number, scammers can contact your employees, pretend to be a representative of a bank or government agency, ask for sensitive information — such as salary information, account numbers, and company intellectual property — and get away with it. Scammers can also manipulate local numbers to emulate multinational banks, which they will then use for various VoIP scams.
VoIP is easy to set up and difficult to track
It isn’t very difficult to configure a VoIP system, and this makes fraudulent phone calls or messages an easy thing to accomplish. Scammers only need to know the basics of a VoIP setup.
VoIP hardware such as IP-PBXs, IP phones, and routers are also inexpensive and quite easy to access. Hackers can conveniently connect these equipment to PCs for the purposes of recording phone calls and stealing information from conversations.
Also, fake numbers are difficult to track because they can be ditched at any time. And with advanced voice-changing software widely available nowadays, a vishing scam is much easier to pull off.
Caller ID can be tampered with
In some vishing scams, attackers don’t even have to destroy a number to cover their tracks. Instead, they can trick users into thinking that they’re talking to a legitimate Microsoft technical support staff, a PayPal representative, or a fraud investigator, simply by tampering with the caller ID.
VoIP scamming is cost-efficient
Traditional phones are still used for phishing scams, but they don’t compare to the efficiency VoIP affords, which allows attackers to target victims all over the globe at a fraction of the cost. Cybercriminals resort to VoIP scamming because the price per call is much lower. Vishing scammers are sneaky and resourceful, and they will exhaust all possible means to attack your systems for profit — and that includes your VoIP channels.
Protecting yourself is simple
To protect against VoIP-based scams, set stringent policies on information-sharing and impose strict security processes for all business communications. Informed and aware employees are key to making sure that scammers are held at bay. Protect your company against all types of scams by getting in touch with our experts today.
