So, how does Vishing even happen?
There are three ways that Vishing typically occurs:
1. The hacker may personally call you and pose as a trusted individual or service provider (i.e. a help desk, customer service, and/or tech support) urging you to take action on an issue or requesting more personal information from you. The most common vishing attempts appear as if you are being contacted by your bank, a government organization (such as the IRS), law enforcement, cell phone provider, or to help you collect the winnings of a prize/contest.
2. The hacker may pose as you by “spoofing,” or forging your number to look like they are making a call that is coming from you. They will use this convincing trick to call an individual or service provider and manipulate them into providing sensitive information about you/your account to the hacker – this could compromise your identity, bank accounts, credit cards, etc..
3. The hacker may spoof their number to appear like they are calling from the local area in which you live. This neighborhood vishing attempt relies on many people’s tendencies to answer a number if it appears that it could be from an old friend or someone they may know.
Vishing is affecting more and more people everyday and is gaining popularity among hackers as a preferred type of social engineering.