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From Rocky Mountain NewsGone vishing Internet voice connections help thieves trick consumers and hide their tracks <snip> Now, savvy con artists are adding a new twist dubbed "vishing." Customers of Santa Barbara Bank & Trust recently received e-mails telling them that their accounts with the company's online banking system had been disabled after the bank detected unauthorized access. They were told to dial a telephone number (with a local, Southern California area code) where an automated voice prompted them to enter their account numbers, personal-access codes and other details. It's not clear who was on the other end of the phone line, but it wasn't Santa Barbara Bank & Trust.
The incident was among the latest in a string of vishing, or voice-phishing, attacks. Security experts say such schemes are made possible by Internet-telephone services, which allow computer users to quickly establish phone numbers, often without undergoing some of the verification checks used by traditional telephone companies.
Also, Internet phone companies dole out numbers with a choice of area code, regardless of where in the country — or world — the user is located. That can make it much more difficult to locate fraudsters. From USA TodayInternet con artists turn to 'vishing'
By Brian Bergstein, Associated Press BOSTON — Internet con artists are turning to an old tool — the phone — to keep tricking Web users who have learned not to click on links in unsolicited e-mails.
<snip> But with Internet users wiser about phishing, the new fake PayPal e-mail included no such link. Instead it told users to call a number, where an automated answering service asked for account information.
Security experts tracking this scam and other instances of "vishing" — short for "voice phishing" — say the frauds are particularly nefarious because they mimic the legitimate ways people interact with financial institutions.
<snip> The upshot: "If you get a telephone call where someone is asking you to provide or confirm any of your personal information, immediately hang up and call your financial institution with the number on the back of the card," said Paul Henry, a vice president with Secure Computing Corp. "If it was a real issue, they can address the issue."
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