Phishing Scams (IRS, SSA, Vacations, Student Loans etc.)
Phishing Scams (IRS, SSA, Vacations, Student Loans etc.)
Scope
Intended Audience: All End Users
This document is intended to help customers to reduce their fraud attack from Phishing Scams (IRS, SSA, Vacations, Student Loans etc.).
Phishing Scams (IRS, SSA, Vacations, Student Loans etc.)
There are companies out there that have product teams, engineering teams, and even billing teams that exist solely for the purpose of defrauding innocent victims of money, information, and credentials. These companies are involved in some of the most widespread phishing and extortion scams across the world. Some of the more commonly known scams include the IRS scam, the Social Security scam, the computer/PC repair scam, the student loan and vacation scams. Most of these scams involve victims paying the bad actors with Apple iTunes cards, Bitcoin and various other gift cards that are very difficult to track or recoup the value of..
Here are the best practices, that customers can follow to prevent the flow of Phishing Scam calls from their network toward ours:
- If phone numbers are disconnected because they were found to be used in a fraudulent manner to perpetrate a phishing scam, DON’T auto-provision phone numbers to the same account.
- Sometimes bad actors use “call-forwarding” to evade detection. Oftentimes, they use multiple call forwarding layers to evade detection. If your network or service offering includes a call-forwarding function, be aware of customers who enter large numbers of entries in your call forwarding tables, especially through web page interfaces. Please send all call-forwarding tables/forwarding information that contain our phone numbers to support
- Keep an eye out for accounts that use numerous phone numbers across a large geographic area. Please report all accounts, and account information, that have numerous phone numbers across large geographic areas to support
- Monitor for and be aware of end users who cycle through phone numbers at higher than normal rates, volumes, and frequencies. This rapid phone number swapping behavior could indicate that they’re trying to avoid detection by carriers, law enforcement, and government agencies. The perpetrators of the IRS and Social Security scam calls will typically swap phone numbers at unusual rates to cover their tracks after initial calls are placed and received.