Truth be told, anyone can fall victim to vishing, particularly in today’s digital age, when scammers employ increasingly sophisticated and credible scam techniques to deceive their victims. The trend skyrocketed worldwide, with the most affected being Brazil and South Korea. As cyber criminals are stealing billions of dollars worldwide, governments are increasing their efforts in educating the public about this threat.
In South Korea, phone phishing rose sharply by 91%, from 447.2 billion KRW in 2023 to 854.5 billion KRW in 2024. This year alone, the financial loss has surpassed 1 trillion KRW (approximately 676 million USD) in just ten months. Faced with this growing threat, the Korean National Police Agency teamed up with Cheil Worldwide agency for a crime-prevention campaign, encouraging the population to recognize a scam call and report it to the authorities.
Titled “Voice Wanted,” the nationwide project is developed in partnership with the Police Department and the Joint Response Team for Telecommunications and Financial Fraud — an initiative the government launched last September as a response system against voice phishing — and is aimed at raising awareness of the vishing threat while also encouraging the population to play an active role in helping eradicate it.
With the phenomenon rapidly evolving, the authorities call on the citizens to report fraudulent calls and help build a database of criminals’ voices. Despite continuously adapting their techniques to trick the victims, the scammers cannot change their voiceprints — which are basically audio fingerprints. Building on this fact, the campaign collects these voices, using the sounds in investigations and strengthening the government’s crime-prevention efforts.
“Many people immediately hang up when they receive a call suspected to be voice phishing, and reports are usually made only after actual damage has occurred. We focused on this behavior and developed a solution that allows anyone who receives a voice phishing call to submit a report, regardless of whether they suffered financial loss,” explained a Cheil Worldwide official involved in the campaign.
To encourage the public to participate and show the real impact of their contributions, the police have developed a series of poster flyers. The illustrations attribute a face to these scammers, each portrait being contoured using waveform graphs extracted from the actual voices of criminals. Every poster includes a QR code, inviting the audience to scan it and discover the campaign’s webpage, which works as an educational tool for them and also as a platform that allows users to submit recorded calls. Following a wanted-style format, the 14,000 flyers will be distributed nationwide across police stations, banks, telecom companies, and government offices.
Commenting on the campaign, Shin Hyo-seop, Senior Superintendent and Head of the Joint Response Team for Telecommunications and Financial Fraud, stated: “This campaign is significant in that it allows us to secure a large volume of up-to-date voiceprints from phishing criminals for prevention and investigation purposes. Furthermore, it sends a strong warning to criminals that attempting voice phishing itself may leave behind evidence, which we expect will help reduce such crimes. We will work comprehensively to eradicate voice phishing by linking this initiative with various solutions such as easy reporting, phone number suspension, and account freezing.”
CREDITS
Brand: Korean National Police Agency // Joint Response Team for Telecommunications and Financial Fraud
Agency: Cheil Worldwide
