How to protect yourself from phone scams – Guide
Vishing is the most phishing shorthand for voice (as well as SMS smishing + phishing) and, aided by the mass shift to remote work, has transformed the phone into a major weapon of fraud to the point that law enforcement agencies are now making regular official announcements about the danger. According to 2019 data from the US Federal Trade Commission, only 6% of fraudulent calls ended in financial losses. However, when that happened, the damage was quite high, averaging $960. Anyone can fall for a scammer’s bait, even experts who think they’ve seen it all. Many scammers excel at earning the trust of even the most vigilant target. On the one hand, vishing is more conservative than regular phishing because the phone itself is an older means of communication. On the other hand, massive data leaks in the digital age have given voice scams new power: never before have scammers had so much information about almost everyone. The proliferation of Internet telephony (VoIP) also plays into the hands of cybercriminals, allowing them to spoof phone numbers and cover their tracks. One such method is when a scammer pretends to be an authority figure to trick someone to reveal your private information, which is known as phishing. Essentially, they set up a gimmick in the form of an official-looking email and expect their target to interact with the email.
How to recognize fraudulent calls
We can’t dismiss the notion that scammers, always on the lookout for more convincing hooks, might one day learn from the rich account history of scams, but most scams exhibit at least one of several warning signs.
How to protect yourself from fraudulent calls
If you spot at least one of the red flags above, it’s best to end the conversation. After that, call the company or organization that claims they just called you and report the incident – the more information they gather, the more likely they are to catch the scammers or at least stop them from doing so. Look up the technical or customer support number separately, for example on the organization’s official website. Also, avoid at all costs installing remote access programs on your computer, no matter how persuasive each caller may be, and rely on a reliable security solution that detects dangerous applications in a timely manner and warns you about them.
Final note
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