But as this scam shows, even thatвЂ™s not always a great strategy. These days, scam calls happen on my mobile so often that I almost never answer my phone unless it appears to come from someone in my contacts list. In many cases, the scammers are polluting top search engine results with phony 800-numbers for customer support lines that lead directly to fraudsters. Relying on anything other than a number obtained directly from the company in question - such as a number obtained from a direct search on Google or another search engine - is also extremely risky. If itвЂ™s another company you do business with, go to the companyвЂ™s Web site and look up their main customer support number. If you want to reach your bank, for example, call the number on the back of your card. If a call has you worried that there might be something wrong and you wish to call them back, donвЂ™t call the number offered to you by the caller. But it is remarkable that AppleвЂ™s own devices (or AT&T, which sold her the phone) canвЂ™t tell the difference between a call from Apple and someone trying to spoof Apple.ДЄs I noted in my October 2018 piece, Voice Phishing Scams are Getting More Clever,В phone phishing usually invokes an element of urgency in a bid to get people to let their guard down. No doubt this is just another scheme to separate the unwary from their personal and financial details, and to extract some kind of payment (for supposed tech support services or some such). After asking me to hold for a brief moment, our call was disconnected. Playing the part of someone who had received the scam call, I told him IвЂ™d been alerted about a breach at Apple and that I needed to call this number.

About a minute later, a man with an Indian accent answered and inquired as to the reason for my call. An automated system answered and said IвЂ™d reached Apple Support, and that my expected wait time was about one minute and thirty seconds. KrebsOnSecurity called the number that the scam message asked Westby to contact (86). вЂњThis was so convincing IвЂ™d think a lot of other people will be falling for it.вЂќ вЂњI told the Apple representative that they ought to be telling people about this, and he said that was a good point,вЂќ Westby said. was the result of Westby accidentally returning the call from the scammers, which she immediately disconnected. The call at 11:47 was the legitimate call from Apple. was lumped in the same recent calls list as the legitimate call from Apple. The fake call spoofing Apple - at 11:44 a.m. But when Westby looked at her iPhoneвЂ™s recent calls list, she saw the legitimate call from Apple had been lumped together with the scam call that spoofed Apple: Westby said the Apple agent told her that Apple had not contacted her, that the call was almost certainly a scam, and that Apple would never do that - all of which she already knew. called her and referenced that case ID number at the start of the call. The page displayed a вЂњcase IDвЂќ to track her inquiry, and just a few minutes later someone from the real Apple Inc. Westby said she immediately went to the support page () and requested to have a customer support person call her back. Note that it lists the correct Apple phone number, street address and Web address (minus the Note in the above screen shot that it lists AppleвЂ™s actual street address, their real customer support number, and the real domain (albeit without the вЂњsвЂќ at the end of вЂњ The same caller ID information showed up when she answered the scammersвЂ™ call this morning. What WestbyвЂ™s iPhone displayed as the scam callerвЂ™s identity. HereвЂ™s what her iPhone displayed about the identity of the caller when they first tried her number at 4:34 p.m. The message said she needed to call a 1-866 number before doing anything else with her phone.

the day before, but she didnвЂ™t answer that call). Westby said earlier today she received an automated call on her iPhone warning that multiple servers containing Apple user IDs had been compromised (the same scammers had called her at 4:34 p.m. Jody Westby is the CEO of Global Cyber Risk LLC, a security consulting firm based in Washington, D.C. The scary part is that if the recipient is an iPhone user who then requests a call back from AppleвЂ™s legitimate customer support Web page, the fake call gets indexed in the iPhoneвЂ™s вЂњrecent callsвЂќ list as a previous call from the legitimate Apple Support line. It starts with an automated call that displayвЂ™s AppleвЂ™s logo, address and real phone number, warning about a data breach at the company. A new phone-based phishing scam that spoofs Apple Inc.

Apple toll free tech support