Vishing, Phishing and Pharming
As a consumer, you are most likely concerned about identity theft. Since internet scams are one of the most popular ways for a consumer to fall victim to identity theft, it is essential that a consumer be aware of the different methods used via the internet to scam innocent consumers. Three of the most common internet scams used to steal an individuals identity are vishing, phishing and pharming. If the terms are not confusing enough, it can be just as confusing trying to find out what each scam actually does. Here we break down all three of these internet scams.
Vishing
Vishing is a scam that is very similar to phishing in the sense that criminals maliciously gain their access to a consumer’s personal information by using social engineering and phishing scams to find their victims. How it works is an identity thief will send a message to their intended victim stating that they need the consumer to call and verify account information or update information on their account. They will be provided a fraudulent number and when the consumer assumes they are dialing their financial institution, they are actually dialing these scam artists. Upon dialing these fraudulent numbers, consumers will then be instructed to verify their account information and often it is via an automated system. By “verifying” this information the consumer has given all the information they need to these scam artists to do what they wish with these account numbers.
Phishing
Phishing is a form of internet scam that is done through email. A consumer will receive an email from their financial institution, online auction site or other online company they deal with asking them to click on a link and log-in to verify information on their account. By clicking on the link, the consumer is then redirected to a fake site that appears just like the original site. The consumer will then log-in to the online system only to find that nothing else happens. Though nothing happens on their end, more than enough has happened on the scam artist’s side. They now have the consumer’s log-in information in order to access the real site and take what information they need.
Pharming
Pharming is another scam that can be used in conjunction with both phishing and vishing scams. Pharming are fake websites that are set-up to capture when a consumer types in a web address incorrectly. For example, they will be sites set-up to capture when a consumer misspells or leaves a letter out of a web address. These sites will be set up just like the original, but be fraudulent sites used to plant malware on a consumer’s computer or encourage the consumer to log-in to the site and allow these frauds to store their log-in information.