Phishing Is Becoming a Physical Sport

Unfortunately, the days where phishing was an activity limited only to the internet and the electronic world is over. These days, con artists are getting creative, and are turning to extreme measures to scam details and financial information out of unknowing consumers.

If you have been the victim of phishing before, you will probably be aware that the activity has a number of characteristics:

• Very difficult to spot unless you're paying close attention.
• Can occur very quickly - with little time to react.
• It can affect you for a long time after its taken place.

Now that phishing has turned in to an everyday activity (which we will go in to in a moment) - you need to be prepared to spot any potential phishing attempts on your information. In this article, we will describe a technique of phishing which is growing exponentially in popularity.

Phone Phishing Is Becoming Very Popular

When you speak to someone on the phone, how are you to know that they are exactly who they say they are? After all, you can't see them, and they can't show any ID. Additionally, when you get an automated phone call from a utility company - for example from your power company reminding you that there is a bill outstanding - how do you know that it is actually from that company (unless you do indeed owe money)?

These days, phishers are using these electronic phone messages to gain an upper hand. Whilst you were thinking that someone couldn't possibly be phishing you over the phone - the phisher is able to get you to input details such as:

• Accounts numbers.
• Pin numbers and phone passwords.
• Social security numbers.

Again, whilst you may not think that these details are what the phisher is after - they can indeed be extremely useful to the person.

Avoiding Phone or Physical Phishing

There is a very simple way to avoid this new type of phishing. Basically, if you do not put any of your details in through the phone keypad, the phisher will be unable to obtain any information, and they will therefore simply move on to the next person.

Whilst this is a somewhat unsatisfactory way of dealing with the issue - if everyone was to do this, phishing would be completely non-existent, and we would never have another phishing problem. Unlikely - but true.