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Voice Phishing Hits PayPal
Chai Vanilla writes "The latest social engineering phishing attack is now using phones instead of fake web sites. Identity thieves have spammed fake PayPal account compromise warnings to lure users into dialing a phone number and giving up credit card information. Unlike normal phishing e-mails, there is no URL or response address. Instead, the e-mail urges the recipient to call a phone number and verify account details."
Haha ! Welcome to the world of Phreaking... You might not know it but the telephone network is as easily hackable, vulnerable and exploitable as the Internet is today. Good luck tracing the bad guy who impersonated your credit card company you supposedly called on 1-800-XXX-YYYY, when he might have penetrated voicemail systems, set up temporary forwarding, hacked telephone switches, etc...
805 is Bakersfield, California, USA. You're charged whatever your long distance carrier feels like. If you go to the FBI website, you'll find that there's a link to file an Internet crime complaint. The link is here: http://www.ic3.gov/
This goes back to decades before the Internet.
[ring, ring]Hello? Hello, is this $TRUSTINGSENIORCITIZEN? I have wonderful news! Congratulations, you have just won a diamond ring in our marketing lottery! There are some shipping and insurance fees, so if you'll just give me your credit card number...".
Law enforcement and consumer groups said over and over not to give out sensitive information unless you placed the call yourself, which is really the same advice as "don't click on the link" if you think about it.
err.. 1980s called? Analogic phone networks are history in most places today. In order to hack the digital circuit switched phone networks used today, you'd need little more than a whistle and a tape recorder. Digital networks use physically separated medium for call control and signalling, and you won't get access to that medium without crowbar and selected location to crack at. And those locations are usually monitored 24/7.
There are no atheists when recovering from tape backup.