Vishing

12/22/2020

Vishing also know as voice phishing refers to phone calls from people who are pretending to be from the government, a reputable company or organization (Enterprise spoofing), or even a family member who needs help (relationship fraud) with the aim of stealing sensitive information

Tactics

To get victims to share personal and financial information, they use social engineering tactics — psychological and social methods of manipulating or tricking users — and the victims’ own emotions to get them to provide information or to perform a specific action.

Here are some cybersecurity tips to protect yourself:

Legitimate companies / manitoulin group of companies staff normally won’t ask you for your social security number, credit card number, PIN, device passwords or sensitive information over a phone call. So, don’t key those in over the phone no matter what.
Don’t always believe your caller ID. A fraudster can call you and make the caller ID look like it’s coming from a legitimate source.
Vishing calls will try to create a sense of urgency so that the victim doesn’t have time to realize there’s something fishy going on or a cyber attack taking place. Some of these could even have an actual person at the other end asking for remote access to your laptop to help you fix a technical issue.
Remain calm and look for signs that the call could be a scam. For instance, government organizations like the IRS will never call you over the phone.
Protect your phone number like you’d protect your sensitive information. Many scams will record the call and use that recording later to make it seem like you’re agreeing to payments you never did
Avoid saying things in the affirmative if you are suspicious. For example, the call may begin with “Hello, can you hear me?” to trick you into saying “yes.”
Inform manitoulin group of companies IT department about any potential vishing calls targeting sensitive information

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