Tag: vishing scam

According to estimates by our experts, the average share of spam in global email traffic in 2023 was 45.60%. This deluge of unwanted emails not only clogs up inboxes, but also consumes a significant amount of time and resources. On average, each year, employees spend between 5 and 18 hours sorting through spam, and when scaled to an organisation with hundreds of employees, this translates into huge amounts of lost productivity. Yet, the wasted time is just the tip of the iceberg.

As social engineering attacks continue to rise in sophistication and prevalence, the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) has evolved to address this growing threat. PCI DSS v4.0 places a strong emphasis on social engineering awareness and prevention, going beyond generic security training to mandate specific technology and controls.

As Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) increasingly migrate to digital channels, fraudsters have taken advantage of the opportunity to revive the old Advanced Fee Fraud (419 scam), duping businesses to make upfront payments for good and services, without the intention to deliver, or pay sums of monies, in advance, to facilitate the payment of loans or promised funds. 

The Festive Season is a time when most South Africans, like the rest of the world, will be looking to spoil their loved ones by purchasing them gifts. Over the past few years, South Africans have been lucky enough to be able to take advantage of the discounts that are offered on Black Friday (the last Friday in November) and Cyber Monday (the Monday immediately following Black Friday).

The pandemic forced everyone to spend more time online than they did before. This was out of necessity because of remote working and the need to buy services and products online. A global collective of highly sophisticated networks of criminals are aware of this larger, captive online audience, and they have innovated and stepped up both the frequency and the complexity of their attacks.

Unfortunately, vishing is not new, but customers may be new to the scam. That’s why we want to warn customers, particularly in these tough economic times, when consumers are more vulnerable. Vishing is a method used to trick banking customers into divulging their confidential banking details, to scam unsuspecting bank customers out of their hard-earned money.