Problem: I recently came across a fascinating statistic about Phishing (a form of scamming individuals into revealing personal, financial, or confidential information to a stranger). According to recent research from Proofpoint, 75% of organizations around the world experienced a phishing attack in 2020, and 74% of attacks targeting US businesses were successful. Though 95% of organizations claim to deliver phishing awareness training to their employees, phishing remains the threat type most likely to cause a data breach. In fact, according to Verizon’s 2020 DBIR, 22% of data breaches involve phishing.”
As I dig deeper into the problem, I realized that there recently has been a proliferation into Voice phishing and other forms of high-tech, normally trusted phising origins. As reported by the FBI,
Phishing has evolved and now has several variations that use similar techniques:
Vishing scams happen over the phone, voice email, or VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol) calls.
Smishing scams happen through SMS (text) messages.
Pharming scams happen when malicious code is installed on your computer to redirect you to fake websites.
Spoofing and phishing are key parts of business email compromise scams.
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Solution: This business would focus on trying to eliminate voice phishing through creating phone-first innovations. Of course you may be wondering, What is vishing? or How do I Spot Vishing (Voice Phishing)? The business would need to clearly answer these questions, but it also would need to create innovations that go beyond understanding. In particular, the business could (1) try to aggregate what sorts of call-patterns or texting-patterns popular vishers use; (2) create a call-center-like service which requires individuals who call you to key-in a code in order to continue the call, much like a service that an airline would have with their customer-service department; or (3) block all callers unless they meet a certain set of criteria, like on your calendar and scheduled for a call or already present in your contact book.
There are actually quite a few videos about Voice Phishing (or vishing for short). They describe quite in depth what the actual scam looks like.
Monetization: Selling this service to telecom companies or customers.
Contributed by: Michael Bervell (Billion Dollar Startup Ideas)