Phishers: Oh, you do know VoIP…
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Imagine you open your emails. Your bank just warns you about an exceptional update of their bank system. Exceptional but possible, you say to yourself. And to make everything clear, you pick up your VoIP phone, dial the number given in the email.
A voice, an automatic one, is repeating the same message. You recognize that this is the computer-generated standard female voice that used to regularly give you all the information on your bank account. And, when she asks you to enter your passwords and account numbers, you just execute her orders. Without any fear. But you shouldn’t. The voice is a fake. One hour later, it’s too late, all your money is gone and there was no exceptional update.
Too bad, but real. Cloudmark Inc., a well-known company tracking scams and phishing techniques around the Internet, confirms that this up-to-date technique has already been used by scammers. Most of them had relied on the open source software Asterisk to turn a computer into an automated telephone system. With a little dose of geekness, they can quickly shape it as a regular bank voice system.
Of course, it’s just a warning. Only a small bank was victim of this security fraud, reported Cloudmark. And of course, there’s not easy defense technique that can counter this sort of attacks. Even an amateur could morph his or her voice to trap his neighborhood. Just download some free softwares like MorphVox (see Changing your voice, make anonymous calls). They aren’t perfect but still, they are very helpful.
This leads us to question you, readers, on this: Do you think VoIP phishing techniques will slow down the Internet telephony adoption?
Apr 26, 2006 | By Nuno
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