Vishing Attacks Crest $1B: How MSSPs Can Help

Telephone scams, often referred to as vishing–a contraction of voice and phishing–are gaining steam among cyber spoofers, as witnessed by the $1.2 billion lost to the swindles last year, according to Federal Trade Commission (FTC) figures.

Overall, consumers lost $8.8 billion to fraud in 2022, the agency said. Number one on the list of fraud schemes was imposter trickery. Reported losses to business imposters was $660 million in 2022.

Losses to phone scams yielded the highest reported loss per person with a median of $1,400.

Vishers are high volume hackers that use social engineering tactics to lure victims to interact with them mostly using an email, text message, phone call, or direct-chat messages. Indeed, a recent study by endpoint security cyber defender Trellix found vishing spiked 142% from Q3 2022 to Q4 2022. Some 85% of vishing attacks were tied to free email services…