Introduction
Most of the people, or let’s say the majority of the individuals have heard about phishing attack and the word, phishing. But today we will be discussing about the word, ‘vishing’. Vishing is a totally different kind of attack, which comes under the canopy of phishing and it has the same objective, just like phishing. In the vishing kind of attack, the attackers use the following – fake phone numbers, software that alters voice, text messages, & also, social engineering tricks, to trace out the sensitive data of the people. In vishing attack, the attacker will mainly use the voice to fool the users. Then, there is also other form of attack i.e. Smishing, in which the attacker will give fraudulent text messages to trick the user or person.
Key Points of Distinction Between Phishing and Vishing
Before we jump into the differences between phishing and vishing, it is important to note that, phishing and vishing has the same objective i.e. to obtain the sensitive data from the users for the purpose of financial gains, theft and account take over. The pivotal point of difference between phishing and vishing is the platform which they use to target possible victims. Phishing is an e-mail-based attack, in vishing the attacker uses fraudulent voice. Both phishing and vishing sends messages to the users in a great number. In phishing, the cyber attacker will send a e-mail, in which they convince the user or reader of the mail to reply to sensitive information and also click on the link that is malware infested.
Visher’s Sending Text Messages
The first thing, that happens in a vishing attack is that the cyber criminal will send a text message to the user from a long list of phone numbers which are different. The message will convince the user to make a phone call to the number of cybercriminals. Robo dials & automated messages are another type of vishing attack. Next, it also uses voice messages which are computer generated, & it removes the accent & helps the cyber criminals in building trusts. Then, the computer-generated voice calls trick the users (victim or receiver of the call) to connect to human agent, who will further continue the scam and extract sensitive data or it can also ask the user to open a website or click on a link, that is controlled by the cyber-criminals or infested.
Conclusion
No matter what, whether it be phishing, vishing or smishing, the main objective of the cyber criminal is to do fraud and the goal of the all three are the same i.e. to extract sensitive information like credentials, financial information, personal data, & so on. Vishing is a new type of cyber fraud or phone call fraud, because the cyber attacker alters the voice through computers and commits the fraud.
