New 'vishing' danger exposed

As reported in an earlier news item, the practice of using phone calls to try and scam people out of their money is taking off.

Unlike traditional phishing emails this scam relies on people answering or making a phone call in order to be persuaded to release their financial details. This is a worrying trend which is particularly dangerous to the elderly who may be more willing to trust the person they are speaking to.

Using the modern facility of VoIP (Voice over IP), which is the ability to use the internet as the telephone network, rather the more traditional phone infrastructure, it is possible to fake the phone number making the call. This can make it extremely difficult to recognise one of these scams.

To read more information about this story on the BBC website, click here.