by Dave Soulia, for FYIVT.com

Cybercriminals have increasingly turned to the telephone to trick victims — a tactic known as vishing, short for voice phishing. Unlike email phishing, which depends on written messages, vishing uses live or recorded phone calls that impersonate authority figures, customer service agents, or even people you know. The goal is simple: to extract personal information, gain access to accounts, or pressure someone into sending money.

A Scam You Can Hear Coming

In a typical vishing attempt, the scammer calls claiming to represent a legitimate institution — perhaps a bank, government office, or technology company. The voice on the line often sounds urgent or authoritative. They might say there’s a problem with your account, that you owe taxes, or that your computer has been compromised.

What makes these calls convincing is the use of real data — names, addresses, or partial account numbers — pulled from earlier data breaches or public records. Caller ID spoofing adds another layer of deception by displaying a familiar or official-looking number.

AI Has Entered the Game

Modern vishing scams are becoming harder to detect because of synthetic voice technology. Tools that can mimic real voices are now cheap and accessible. Fraudsters have already begun using cloned voices to impersonate relatives or co-workers, adding emotional leverage to their attacks. The result is a scam that sounds personal — and urgent.

Why Even Savvy People Get Fooled

Vishing succeeds because it exploits human psychology, not just technology. Scammers apply pressure: “You must act now,” or “You’ll be arrested if you don’t comply.” These tactics create a sense of emergency that overrides rational judgment.

Even people who consider themselves cautious can be caught off guard by a well-timed call that uses believable details and emotional manipulation. While older adults remain frequent targets, the combination of AI voices and widespread data leaks means anyone with a phone is at risk.

Eight Ways to Protect Yourself

1. Don’t trust caller ID. Spoofing can make any number appear legitimate. If a call seems suspicious, hang up and dial the official number from the organization’s website or your account statement.
2. Slow down. Urgency is a hallmark of vishing. Real companies won’t threaten arrest, demand immediate payment, or insist that you act without verifying first.
3. Never share private data. No legitimate representative will ask for your passwords, PINs, or authentication codes over the phone. If they do, it’s a scam.
4. Verify through a second channel. If a caller claims to be someone you know, contact that person directly through a known number or text before doing anything else.
5. Refuse remote-access requests. Some scammers pose as tech support and ask you to install software that gives them control of your device. Hang up immediately if that happens.
6. Use call-blocking tools. Carriers and mobile devices now include spam filters or apps to screen high-risk numbers. Report suspicious calls to your carrier and to federal agencies like the FTC or FCC to help track repeat offenders.
7. Never say “yes” to unknown callers. Scammers can record your voice and misuse it for fake authorizations — instead of saying “yes”, respond with neutral phrases like “This is.” or ask who’s calling and why.
8. Use the 2-Second Rule

The Two-Second Rule Works

Most large-scale scam operations use predictive dialers — automated systems that place hundreds or thousands of calls at once.

• When someone answers, the system needs a second or two to detect a live human voice.
• It then routes the call to an available scammer or triggers a recorded message.
• That’s the brief dead air you hear before the voice comes on.

If you hang up before the transfer completes, you avoid engaging with the social-engineering part of the scam — the real danger zone.

How to Apply It

1. Answer once and count to two. If you hear silence, a click, or background noise but no voice, hang up immediately.
2. Don’t say anything else. Some systems record your responses or use voice samples for later fraud attempts (especially with AI cloning).
3. Avoid pressing buttons or following instructions. “Press 1 to be removed” is another trap that just confirms your number is active.
4. Block the number afterward and, if possible, report it to your phone carrier or the FTC’s Do Not Call registry.

Bonus Tip

If you use a smartphone, enabling spam call filtering or Silence Unknown Callers features helps tremendously. They send unknown numbers to voicemail — and since scammers rarely leave useful messages, that keeps you off their radar entirely.

What Businesses Can Do

Companies also have a role to play. Organizations that communicate by phone should clearly define what employees will and will not ask for. That means never requesting passwords or payment details in cold calls. Providing customers with official callback numbers and regular security reminders can prevent confusion — and reduce the success rate of vishers.

If You’ve Been Targeted

Anyone who has provided information or lost money should contact their bank immediately to secure accounts and change passwords. Reporting incidents to local law enforcement and federal authorities may help recover funds or at least prevent others from falling victim to the same group.

The Last Line of Defense: Skepticism

Technology keeps changing, but the core defense stays the same: pause before acting. Scammers rely on quick reactions. Taking a moment to verify — or simply hanging up — can defeat even the most sophisticated scheme.

Staying cautious, skeptical, and deliberate is still the best protection against vishing. Awareness doesn’t cost anything, but it can save you from the most expensive call you’ll ever take.