Vishing

Now most of us are aware of phishing threat in the internet and phishing is almost an outdated form of identity theft. Hackers are looking forward for innovative ideas to gain illegal access to your account. No body is safe from hackers, anyone-anytime can be a victim of those intelligent people.
Vishing is the new technique used by hackers to theft identity. Vishing is somewhat similar to phishing. Vishing is phishing through voice! Usually criminals make use of IP phones (Voice over IP) to call the victim (usually the numbers stolen from financial institution), when the victim answers the call an automated recording, often generated with a text to speech synthesizer, is played to alert the consumer that their credit card had a fraudulent activity or that their bank account has had unusual activity (criminals changes this message quite often in order to get the originality). Then the message instructs the consumer to call the following number immediately. The same phone number is often shown in the spoofed caller ID and given the same name as the financial company they are pretending to represent. When the victim calls the number, it is answered by automated instructions to enter their credit card number or bank account number on the key pad. Once the consumer enters their credit card number or bank account number, the visher has the information necessary to make fraudulent use of the card or to access the account. The call is often used to harvest additional details such as security PIN, expiration date, date of birth, etc. VoIP calls are difficult to trace, the criminals make use of those vulnerabilities in the developing VoIP technology.
So next time if you receive any such calls don’t call back or call the number they ask to call, instead call the financial institutions helpline first to confirm the information. Don’t be a victim of identity theft. Take more care when you use i-banking or other online banking facilities.