Phishing, smishing, and vishing. That’s where we are in 2024. As surreal as their names are, the threats posed by phishing, smishing, and vishing are tangible.
These three methods of fraud are most often used to get at your personal information, or worse, steal your identity.
Phishing involves some skill to carry out, but no skill to avoid. The scammers send you an email claiming your account has been compromised, along with a link to click. The url for the scam page may look like the legitimate url but with some clever alterations. That’s why I always recommend going to the real company’s — or governmental agency’s — website to verify that they’re really contacting you.
Once there, they typically make you login through a fake login window, instantly obtaining your username and password. You might also be asked for your routing and account numbers, online PIN, etc.
Smishing is a portmanteau of SMS and phishing. Smishing can do all the things phishing can do, but so much more. It installs adware and spyware, and browses how you use the phone, including dating apps. Also, Receiving a text just seems more urgent than an email to most people, and they might be caught off guard. But once again, it’s easy to avoid if you simply don’t click on suspicious links.
Vishing is for voicemail-phishing. Think: “I’m calling about your 2015 Honda’s warranty.” Vishers can use a person — or robocalls — in which the victims can input Social Security numbers and/or driver’s license numbers. The believability of the scam can vary, mostly because phishing, smishing, and vishing are numbers games. (Scam artists probably know all sorts of statistics on their trade.)
As I alluded to, the best strategy is to avoid these annoying calls and texts, if possible, and when they do contact you, to never take their bait. Because, when they come at a person, implying things about their money, some very savvy people have panicked and given in.
If you would like help extricating yourself from a scam, contact JHA and we will put our team on it.
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