Blocking VoIP Spam

Vishing is defined as phishing using VoIP, which is often free or at least inexpensive. What VoIP affords over traditional telephony is the ability to integrate voice data applications, to manage VoIP conversations and manipulate related information. On the plus side, this means that hybrid VoIP-CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tools can be built for businesses. On the negative side, this means that someone could also come up with an automated system to randomly call an auto-generated list of usernames for various soft VoIP networks and either annoy or even cheat customers.

Thus the market for blocking such activity is going to rise, with new methods devised to determine the validity of a caller. In fact, Microsoft has already developed a system, called V-Priorities, that can screen phone calls by analyzing the caller’s voice. If the technology proves successful, it might be possible to use it for filtering spam calls. Fortunately, all soft VoIP clients, in my experience, already have a sort of filter. If someone tries to contact you, you have to allow them into your contact list. Some of older text IMs that have more recenlty offered pc2pc calling don’t necessarily follow this, but soft clients like Skype do.

Additional sources: [Businesswire]