ID Awareness & Security

As with "phishing" which uses electronic contacts, in vishing attacks, crooks claim to be with legitimate financial institutions or other entities. They ask consumers to "verify" or "re-submit" personal information such as bank account and credit card numbers, Social Security Numbers, passwords, and personal identification numbers

A February alert from the National Credit Union Association (CUNA) explains that vishing scams' use of social engineering and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology exploits the public's trust in landline telephone services. The victim is often unaware that VoIP allows for caller ID spoofing thus providing anonymity for the criminal caller.

The NCUA said vishing is attractive to criminals because VoIP service is fairly inexpensive, especially for long distance, making it cheap to make fake calls. Also, because it's Web-based, criminals can use software programs to create phony automated customer call center service lines.

The NCUA advised that, for their protections, consumers should be highly suspicious when receiving messages - via telephone, e-mail, or otherwise -- directing them to call and provide personal, confidential, and/or account related information.