Vishing

In telecommunications, Vishing is voice-based phishing, where attackers use phone calls (often with spoofed caller IDs) to impersonate trusted entities and extract credentials, one-time passwords, or authorize fraudulent actions. STIR/SHAKEN, robocall analytics, and CLI-spoofing controls reduce the credibility of vishing campaigns.

Categories: Security ControlsThreats and AttacksFraud

Vishing in context

Security controls in telecom span signaling firewalls (SS7/Diameter/GTP screening at the network edge), transport encryption (IPsec, TLS, PRINS), identity and access on OSS/BSS, and monitoring at both the packet and log level. Controls are audited against GSMA FS.11/FS.19/FS.20/FS.36 and, in Europe, NIS2 sectoral rules.

Telecom threats range from opportunistic SMS phishing and SIM swap to nation-state grade location tracking and lawful-interception abuse. The common thread is that most attacks exploit the inherited trust model of legacy signaling. SS7 and Diameter were designed for a closed operator community that no longer exists.

To place Vishing in the wider telecom-security picture, review CLI Spoofing, MAC Filtering, Smishing, Flash Call Fraud, PBX Dial-Through Fraud and Artificial Traffic Inflation.

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