What is Vishing and how to avoid being a victim of it.

As it is currently tax season in the United States now seems like a good time to cover a scam called Vishing a.k.a “Voice Phishing”. You might be wondering what exactly is Vishing, well, essentially Vishing is when scammers attempt to gather information for further social engineering attacks, or they attempt to scam the person they are calling into giving them money. These scams are unfortunately widespread and target people of all ages. For example, in Birmingham Alabama, there were news articles on people who were impersonating the local Birmingham police department. In this article, I will show you how these scammers operate, some red flags to look out for, and how you can avoid being a victim of a Vishing campaign.  These scammers rely on two aspects when it comes to scamming people. First, the scammers will act on urgency in an attempt to get you, the victim, to give them money or sensitive information. One example of urgency is someone who is claiming to be calling from the IRS and telling you that you owe taxes and if you do not pay up you will unfortunately face severe consequences. Essentially, the scammer is trying to put fear into…

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