New cases about “vishing”

As reported by the Wall Street Journal, a CEO of an English energy company stepped into this trap and was reached by telephone by his (alleged) superior asking him to make an urgent wire bank transfer to a supplier.

The CEO himself was very familiar with the German accent and voice patterns and had no suspicion and transferred Euro 221,000.00 to a Hungarian supplier.

This is by no means an isolated case. In July 2019, the Israel National Cyber Directorate  warned against a "new cyber-attack" based on artificial intelligence technologies used by criminals to impersonate high-level executives and managers who instruct employees to steal money, collect confidential information or engage in other harmful activities in detriment of victims.

For the above reasons, it is strongly recommended that a second means of communication or even the four-eyes principle be used for “unusual” requests. This is the only way to ensure who is really at the other end of the phone.