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Use Caller ID to screen your calls? Think again. |
Caller ID isn't a surefire way to screen your telephone calls - the service is now being appropriated by hackers and identity thieves.
These scams are made possible by technology that enables users to manipulate the voice, phone number, and even the name that shows up on the recipient's caller ID. The technology serves to allow users to masquerade as law enforcement agencies, banks and credit card companies.
Spoofing is the phone industry's equivalent to phishing, in which criminals use fake e-mails to lure the unsuspecting to divulge their personal information.
Is this legal? Well, fraud definintely isn't. But as far as anyone can tell, there is nothing against caller ID spoofing that is not connected to fraud.
Still, the service can lead to some horrific results i.e. this harmful prank:
In one case, SWAT teams surrounded a building in New Brunswick, N.J., last year after police received a call from a woman who said she was being held hostage in an apartment. Caller ID was spoofed to appear to come from the apartment.
It's also easy to break into a cell phone voice mailbox using spoofing, because many systems are set to automatically grant entry to calls from the owner of the account. Stopping that requires setting a PIN code or password for the mailbox.
Guess it's time to go back to answering machine screening. Or wait, maybe it's time for congress to do something about it?
via [Schneier] |
