PLDT Inc. and Smart Communications warned their customers about the growing threat of vishing, or voice phishing.
“Criminals are quick to adapt. Now that our new firewall has made it harder for them to send text scams, they now resort to calling customers on their mobile phones or via over-the-top apps to lure them into revealing critical personal data,” said Jojo Gendrano, senior vice president and chief information security officer at PLDT and Smart.
Vishing is a form of phishing done over voice calls. It’s a type of social engineering where fraudsters, pretending to be bank agents, call their potential victims to trick them into sharing personal information like log-in details, account numbers and credit card CVV numbers.
They may address the victim by his or her name to sound legitimate. They typically induce panic in their victims by warning them of account closure or suspension.
These cybercriminals may also tell customers that they have been chosen for a free credit card upgrade and will only need to confirm their information to activate the new card. Either of these tactics is being used to persuade customers into revealing sensitive data.
PLDT said cybercriminals are getting more sophisticated, employing artificial intelligence (AI) to generate life-like voices or mimic the voice of a victim’s close acquaintance to gain their trust.
“Once criminals possess the necessary information, they will then take over the customer’s account, empty their savings or use their credit card information to make unauthorized transactions,” Gendrano said.
Smart said it activated its new and more advanced network firewall in the first half of July 2024 to enhance its capability to weed out text scams. The new cybersecurity tool was able to block as many as 30 million malicious texts in one day, leading to a notable decline in the number of SMShing messages reported by customers in July.
