Phishing, Smishing, and Vishing

Every year Sony makes me take mandatory security training and I recently went through the exercise again. Whenever there is annual training, it is best to try and figure out what is new or has been changed. This year I learned two new terms: Smishing and Vishing.

I already know what Phishing is. Anyone who has had an e-mail account knows that scammers will try to send you an e-mail that plays on your emotions to get important personal information. Most of the time the e-mails are easy to spot and I quickly delete them.

The younger generations have mostly ignored e-mail and prefer phones. They fit in your pocket and so texting has become second nature to them. I used to hate texting as I saw it screw up a lot of meetings and slow things down. Now I don't mind it as it is an efficient way to communicate. This is what scammers use for Smishing, your mobile phone. It is the same thing as a Phishing attack but comes over your phone instead of through e-mail. Someone asking for the recently received code your bank texted to you would be an example of Smishing. The term is a mix of Phishing and SMS messaging. As with a Phishing attack, you should never share personal information via text messaging.

So what is Vishing? That is when a scammer calls you or uses voicemail to request sensitive information like passwords or bank information. With current artificial intelligence technology, scammers could call using your spouse or child's voice asking for a password. Therefore it is important to verify phone numbers whenever anyone asks for sensitive information. Even better would be to call the person back as phone numbers can be spoofed as well. Perhaps this is why there is a new word for something I have always considered Phishing until now.

There are relatively few scammers in the world but it feels like they are everywhere. This means we all need to be vigilant about not sharing secret information that would allow them to get into our bank accounts or steal our identity. Vocabulary for Phishing, Smishing, and Vishing just means that they are using every tool possible.