Sounds Phishy: Protecting Consumers Against Phone Phishing

As people have more information about themselves available online, and with more data breaches occurring, it is simple for scammers to use credible information to build trust and initiate spear phishing attacks, leaving the victim with their personal identity information compromised and/or financially distressed. Social engineering attacks are difficult to combat and especially difficult to recover from financially, psychologically, and more. How might we help people protect themselves from these phishing scams, particularly when they use social engineering tactics?

Our project consists of two main goals:

1. To understand phone phishing and consumer phone behaviors from multiple perspectives: existing cybersecurity literature, consumer anti-phishing awareness campaigns, victims of imposter phone scams, consumers, and social engineers.  
2. To explore a real-time imposter phone scam detection application aimed to identify and warn users of phone phishing with consideration towards privacy and security.