re: Phone scammers targeting LSU students

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read a story once too. It was fiction

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Because of voice-over-IP technology, fraudsters and criminals from anywhere in the world can reach out and talk to anyone. In addition, they can easily hide their identity, or pretend to be someone else. Because many consumer service companies—and government agencies—use a phone call as a way to confirm identity, this poses a major problem.

Police officers regularly have to deal with fake calls phoning in emergencies, such as hostage situations and shootings, that lead to SWAT teams showing up at a victim’s house. A rash of so-called swatting has targeted popular video gamers who stream their playing live on the Internet. At the heart of the vicious prank is the ability of the assailant to spoof their number and masquerade as the victim.

Spoofing has also led to numerous scams against consumers and financial institutions, as well as allow hackers to sometimes abuse the password recovery features of online services and wrest control of a victim’s accounts.

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