Saturday, January 7, 2017

Hey Mom, is that really you on the phone?

There is no end to phishing innovations. The new Adobe VoCo software can take an extremely short audio recording of someone’s voice—say, from a YouTube video, and allow a user to create new audio in that person’s voice… all on the fly. This is pretty amazing technology, but the potential for voice phishing is scary. Think of the ways this could be exploited at work and at home. For example:

“Mom, I am in jail and my lawyer needs $3000 to bond me out.”
“Sis, what is your SSN again? I need to make you a beneficiary on my new benefits program.”

The possibilities are endless. Will all humans need to invoke phone passcodes going forward? Or should we invoke call-backs whenever dealing with sensitive information by phone? ("I will call you back with that information."

You decide.