Phishing and Vishing: All you need to know in 3 Points

Introduction

With rapid digital advancements, several advanced and large-scale cyber threats have also been appearing from time to time across the globe. These cyber-threats seem to be very diverse in nature and take place in various forms through different methods and many people end up being victims of it.

Phishing and vishing are two major processes through which scammers and cyber attackers trick people to fall into their trap who end up revealing their sensitive, personal, and confidential data which will be used for the benefit of those scammers in the future. The main motive of the scammers and the attackers is to use manipulation and trickery as their prime tool which helps them convince the victims to share their personal data with them.

Phishing and vishing have caused more than 45$ million in 2018 in the United States, according to a report. Phishing and vishing means are almost related but they are diverse in nature and involve a lot of various methodologies to conduct the crime in an eventual manner.

Vishing phishing takes place through a lot of techniques which include but are not limited to filter evasion, link fabrication, website fabrication, covert redirect, special engineering, and more.

1. What is Phishing?
2. What is vishing?
3. Difference between phishing and vishing

1. What is Phishing?

Phishing basically refers to the scam which involves scammers who pretend to pose as an institution and convince people to give up their sensitive, personal, and confidential data with them for their benefit. 

The phishing process takes place when scammers use phone calls, emails, voice mails, and other mediums to fake the fraud calls. It is an umbrella term that includes all kinds of cyber calling which causes trouble for organizations and people in general.

The major goal of the scammers is to appear as trustworthy individuals in the first place. Later on, they have to be really convincing to convince the victims to firstly open it and then going about absolutely whatever the scammers would want them to do.

There are various types of phishing that take place from time to time. Some of the major types include spear phishing, clone phishing, whaling, and many more. However, the most common method remains to be voice phishing and email phishing. 

2. What is vishing?

The word “vishing” has derived from two different words which are “voice” and “phishing”. Vishing is basically a scam that takes place through phone calls which are conducted by cyber attackers. The scammers use social engineering through which they convince people to reveal their personal information to them.

Vishing is a long procedure that may have several steps that are followed by the scammers to convince people so that they end up falling into their trap and reveal their confidential data to them.

The callers mainly address themselves as people who offer bank loans, prizes. Sometimes, they claim that the victim’s bank account has been disabled due to which they need their confidential information such as bank and credit/ debit card details to rectify the issues.

Scammers primarily and most commonly use fraud websites from where they operate the entire process and make people reveal the information they need. Some of the common vishing techniques include spoofing an original phone number and making calls so that the victims fail to recognize if that is an actual caller or a scammer; if this method fails, the scammers often go on leaving voice mails which would ultimately convince the victim to call them back. Therefore, the process of cyber vishing is quite versatile and diverse in nature and modus operandi.

Vishing in computers takes place through various mediums that aim at conducting video and conference calls using various applications such as skype, zoom, and so on. Scammers use these applications to make the victims reveal their personal and confidential information which would later be used for their own benefit in some way or the other. The major element of conducting vishing fraud is manipulation and trickery which causes these crimes and victims to fall into the trap made by the attackers.

One of the most common phishing and vishing attacks that have been going around for quite a while now is the phone calls which tell you that you have won some prize or hamper and in order to claim the prize you would be asked to call a certain number. These scam calls are made by robotic voices most of the time. Vishing phishing is a scam that has been going on since the time internet was made available to the public and internet calls became common.

3. Difference between phishing and vishing

Although both phishing and vishing refer to the same kind of cyber scam, there are certain differences as well. Here are the major points of differences: vishing vs phishing/phishing vs vishing:

Phishing basically refers to the scam which primarily involves email attacks that aim at tricking people into giving up their personal and confidential information to the scammers. It involves various methods including stealing credit or debit card details along with sensitive bank information, login credentials, and so on.

Vishing, on the other hand, involves verbal communication through which the whole scam process takes place. Therefore, vishing attacks most take place through phone calls and sometimes via desktops and laptops. When the attackers fail to communicate with their potential victims, they often leave voice messages and voice mails which would convince them to revert back as soon as possible. 

Vishing phishing has eventually evolved to be two of the major ways through which huge cybercrimes occur across the globe. With the new advancements, scammers are also getting smarter day by day and finding new ways to trick people to fall into their traps.

Vishing phishing is a method that takes a lot of planning and follows certain steps to make sure they become successful. Therefore, in order to prevent such scam from happening, people have to be aware of vishing and phishing and understand what phishing and vishing mean in the first place. 

Conclusion

However, apart from that, some other steps can be taken to avoid such situations. One of the most effective ways to avoid this would be to ignore such calls and report and block the caller immediately. However, scammers tend to steal identity by spoofing phone numbers from time to time which makes it even more difficult to analyze whether their identity is real or not.

Whenever anyone receives such fraud calls, they must consider contacting their respective bank executives if they are the actual ones who made this call in the first place. Also, hanging up is important if no prior move has been made by the receiver’s side. Phishing and vishing attacks can have really serious repercussions. Therefore, precautionary steps should be taken in order to avoid such vishing and phishing misconducts.

Also Read

• Vishing: An Easy Guide in 5 Points