Vishing Attacks Rise 350%

New report reveals alarming increase in voice fraud incidents.

There seems to be no end to the number of ways scammers can target your data, and new methods crop up almost every day. From the highest skill sets involved in cybercrime and hacking to the most ordinary, mundane social engineering scams, literally anyone can go after your information, your money, or both.

Call center software provider Pindrop, has conducted a study and found a plausible correlation between the rise in data breaches and hacking events and a 350% increase in voice fraud incidents. These calls seek to change customer information in order to access accounts, and have proven to be all too effective.

According to Android Headlines, “Last year, one in every 638 calls conducted over any voice channel was fraudulent, the alarming report reveals…Synthetic voice solutions such as Google Duplex have the potential to bring consumer-grade AI to an entirely new level but could also end up being exploited by fraudsters, which is what is already happening with chatbots.”

How are scammers getting information of who to target with vishing?

Through record-setting numbers of data breaches and compromised consumer records. With each new incident, criminals have access to more and more information that enables them to commit further acts of fraud and identity theft.

Of course, technology and innovation aren’t helping. With advancements in AI machine learning and more true-to-life humanoid VAs, vishing attempts become more streamlined and more believable. They can also occur at a much faster rate, just like robocalling and spam email. When criminals can use AI to make these calls in the volume they can send out a mass email, the net they cast gets wider and the number of possible victims goes up.

Will it only get worse?

This increase in vishing calls goes hand in hand with another alarming tech statistic: the number of scam calls to mobile phones is estimated to reach 50% of total call volume by next year. There’s no evidence that these kinds of tactics will decrease any time soon, and ongoing innovations only make the work easier for the bad guys.