Comments on: Protecting yourself from vishing attacks

First there was phishing and now there is vishing. Here's an FAQ for consumers to learn more about the latest scam techniques that uses your phone.

[terminalblue]

This isnt anything new, but it has a new name, hell Kevin Mitnik went to jail for this years ago. Its nothing but social engineering and some modern phreaking....

i dont understand why they have to rebrand this stuff.

[tgrenier]

Mitnick made free phone calls. These a-holes steal money. This is much more sophisticated and troubling.

[pentest]

Mitnik costs companies millions.

This is just another meaningless buzzword to describe something old. Just like Web 2.0 and Cloud computing.

[justgold79]

mitnick never did anything other than **** off powerful people and give the companies a free security audit. He was an electronic graffiti artist or an electronic trespasser. The war on hacking is just like the misguided war on drugs. The sentences are far greater than the crime. The holes were already there.

[Sam Papelbon]

vishing... because the 'ph' in phishing can't be matched up with anything related to phones.

[johnboy324]

STOP! STOP! STOP!! "vishing"... because people are lazy, and dont want to look up history of phreaking. Main stream media wants to keep it current, and parallel it with phishing.

[hassan_bin_sober]

I actually physically caught one! ...He became shark chum off the coast Florida. Ya can't wait for the government to deal with it.

[inachu1]

I either get the car warranty one or the robo mexican talker who I do not even know what she is trying to sell then she hangs up.

You might as well speak chinese to a german person as that was a 100% lost sale!

[elleneyegreen]

YAY!!! Finally these criminals who not only try to steal our money but harass us interminably are getting some heat! I've been constantly harassed by these exact two fraudulent phantoms. They DO use spoofing or poofing (as I like to call it) when calling, the 1st call comes in as "unknown name, unknown number". If unanswered they call back with "private name, private number", or in the very rare event that a number does actually and miraculously appear, upon calling it it turns out, of course, to be bogus, the reply being "disconnected number" or "number does not exist". I have actually pressed a number to speak to a human, first requesting their phone number, upon which they immediately hang up, getting the same reaction when requesting to be removed from their list. So I changed my tactics, and merely for self amusement, press the number in order to scream creative profanity at them. I'm buying a whistle today, that should do it. They are vile and should be locked up in an equally vile place for life. I've reported both "CCS" ("Credit Card Services"), based in Florida, and the equally disgusting car warranty scam to the FCC for having violated the "Do Not Call" Registry, with which I am registered, on several occasions. Exact same modus operandi on both accounts. Not only are they criminals attempting not only to steal your money but your identity as well, grossly invading one's privacy while they're at it. Get rid of all these bastards!

[TheReaperD]

Two words: Air horn... ]:-}

[shootfirst]

Wow you really think that any scammer is going to care that you are on a do not call list? In fact people think they are safer on these lists that are distributed so they aren't called, which is who I would call first. Spoofing is really easy and the fact is that many people are stupid and I think they deserved to lose their money to these scams. I don't think there should be new laws made to protect these idiots, but education on how to use the technology that they take for granted. Tech is awesome, but you will get burned often if you do not use common sense a bit of chewing gum and twine at times. I don't think we should waste our money on this bs at all. We need to fix our systems and educate its that simple. Those who don't want to take the time to be educated should be laughed at as ignorance is only bliss for so long.

[elleneyegreen]

Wow, you really missed the point. But it is easy and yes, those who have been ripped off were embarrassingly stupid, but they certainly didn't deserve it. Now, the scammers, at least some, are getting what they deserve. Hmm, sounds like you support the criminal element and enjoy the fact that "idiots" as you say, are getting ripped off. Now comments like that really show education...

[Roman1024A]

So it took 1 billion fraudulent calls for police to notice the fraud?!

[mjd420nova]

Having been the target of a large number of these calls, I was most interested as they only came into my VOIP line and not my regular landline. Viewing the caller ID, I either didn't answer them after they were identified as bogus as I do not own a new car. They did originate with a Florida area code and not knowing anyone from Florida, I ignored them. Other calls were in reference to a credit card problem, which again were ignored as I do not have any credit cards and have not had one since 1991. These originators of the calls should be prosecuted as simple thieves and put in jail. They are stealing money from those individuals as the payments are made under false pretenses.

[justgold79]

true dat, I only got calls on my google voice (which is a form of voip and the number blocks from level 3 which google uses are probably voip)

[yacahuma]

Life is not free. You have to pay for everything. For your car, your house, going to the movies, etc, etc. If you are the victim of one of this you pay the price of stupidity. Dont trust anyone and please dont give your credit card to anyone over the phone unless you started the call. If you are the victim, please dont blame is on the spammer. It is your fault for being stupid.

[pentest]

This is just another meaningless buzzword to describe something old. Just like Web 2.0, Blog, and Cloud computing.