Phishing is a form of social engineering and scam where attackers deceive people into revealing sensitive information or installing malware such as ransomware. Phishing attacks have become increasingly sophisticated and often transparently mirror the site being targeted, allowing the attacker to observe everything while the victim is navigating the site, and transverse any additional security boundaries with the victim. As of 2020, it is the most common type of cybercrime, with the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center reporting more incidents of phishing than any other type of computer crime.
Phone fraud, or more generally communications fraud, is the use of telecommunications products or services with the intention of illegally acquiring money from, or failing to pay, a telecommunication company or its customers.
Caller ID spoofing is a spoofing attack which causes the telephone network's Caller ID to indicate to the receiver of a call that the originator of the call is a station other than the true originating station. This can lead to a display showing a phone number different from that of the telephone from which the call was placed.
Voice phishing, or vishing, is the use of telephony to conduct phishing attacks.
A robocall is a phone call that uses a computerized autodialer to deliver a pre-recorded message, as if from a robot. Robocalls are often associated with political and telemarketing phone campaigns, but can also be used for public service, emergency announcements, or scammers. Multiple businesses and telemarketing companies use auto-dialing software to deliver prerecorded messages to millions of users. Some robocalls use personalized audio messages to simulate an actual personal phone call. The service is also viewed as prone to association with scams.
Telemarketing fraud is fraudulent selling conducted over the telephone. The term is also used for telephone fraud not involving selling.
Google Voice is a telephone service that provides a U.S. phone number to Google Account customers in the U.S. and Google Workspace customers in Canada, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the contiguous United States. It is used for call forwarding and voicemail services, voice and text messaging, as well as U.S. and international calls. Calls are forwarded to the phone number that each user must configure in the account web portal. Users can answer and receive calls on any of the phones configured to ring in the web portal. While answering a call, the user can switch between the configured phones. Subscribers in the United States can make outgoing calls to domestic and international destinations. The service is configured and maintained by users in a web-based application, similar in style to Google's email service Gmail, or Android and iOS applications on smartphones or tablets.
Whitepages is a provider of online directory services, fraud screening, background checks and identity verification for consumers and businesses. It has the largest database available of contact information on residents of the United States.
An 809 scam is a form of phone fraud which exploits the tendency of telephone subscribers in Canada and the United States to presume that a number in the familiar North American Numbering Plan format of 1-NPA-NXX-XXXX is a domestic call at standard rates because of the absence of the 011- international prefix which normally indicates an overseas call.
Baidu Yi, also known as "Baidu Yun", was an operating system for mobile devices until Baidu suspended it. It is based on Google's Android but is a fork by Baidu, the dominant search engine operator in China. It was announced on 2 September 2011 at the 2011 Baidu Technology Innovation Conference in Beijing.
Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store or Play Store and formerly Android Market, is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certified devices running on the Android operating system and its derivatives, as well as ChromeOS, allowing users to browse and download applications developed with the Android software development kit and published through Google. Google Play has also served as a digital media store, offering games, music, books, movies, and television programs. Content that has been purchased on Google Play Movies & TV and Google Play Books can be accessed on a web browser and through the Android and iOS apps.
Camp Mobile, founded in February 2013, is a mobile application development company based in Seoul, Korea. Ram Lee and Jongmahn Park are the co-CEOs. The company currently operates seven mobile services ranging from social network service to smartwatch application, including BAND, Moot, SNOW, Whoscall, WatchMaster, LINE Deco, and LINE Launcher.
NumBuster! is a phone community that users can access via a mobile phone client and a Web application. Developed by NumBuster Ltd, it allows users to find contact details of any phone number, exchange information about numbers with other users and block calls and messages. The client is available for Android and Apple iOS.
Google TV is a digital distribution service for movies and television series. Google announced the service in September 2020, offering search and discovery of video titles across multiple streaming services, including rental or purchase options, alongside watchlist features for accessing titles from eligible devices and platforms. The buy, rent, or preorder options were shared with the predecessor Google Play Movies & TV, which has since moved to the newer service.
Pindrop Security is an American information security company that provides risk scoring for phone calls to detect fraud and authenticate callers. The company analyzes several different features of a phone call that helps identify the uniqueness of a device and attaches it to a caller. In 2015, Pindrop screened more than 360 million calls.
AnyDesk is a remote desktop application distributed by AnyDesk Software GmbH. The proprietary software program provides platform-independent remote access to personal computers and other devices running the host application. It offers remote control, file transfer, and VPN functionality. AnyDesk is often used in technical support scams and other remote access scams.
Google Messages is a text messaging software application developed by Google for its Android and Wear OS mobile operating systems, while it's also available via the Web.
ispoof.cc was a website used by many people to make unauthorised phone calls while displaying a caller ID falsely indicating that they were legitimate callers. In 2021 and 2022 it was part of an investigation by numerous law enforcement agencies into frauds enabled by this caller ID spoofing. It was shut down in November 2022 as the result of Operation Elaborate, a multi-agency investigation led by the Metropolitan Police and supported by Netherlands Police, Europol and Eurojust. As of 2022, it is the largest fraud investigation that has ever taken place in the United Kingdom.
A fraud factory or fraud park is a collection of large fraud organizations usually involved in human trafficking operations, commonly found in Southeast Asia, including Cambodia, Myanmar, or Laos, and usually operated by a criminal gang. Fraud factory operators lure foreign nationals to scam hubs, where they are forced into modern slavery, to scam internet users around the world into fraudulently buying cryptocurrencies or withdrawing cash, via social media and online dating apps. Trafficking victims' passports are confiscated, and they are threatened with organ harvesting and forced prostitution if they do not scam sufficiently successfully.
National Anti-Fraud Center (NAFC) is a Chinese fraud prevention and reporting mobile application developed by the Ministry of Public Security. It was first published in March 2021. The software claims that it can maintain telecommunications network security, create channels for reporting online fraud and raising awareness for fraud prevention. The Chinese government claims that the app can be used to detect possible telecommunication frauds in addition to reporting them, and heavily promotes its installation.
