Sprinter VoIP Services

Vishing Attacks Are Rising Through Your Phone System

April 30, 2026 – By Nicholas Pionek, Operations Manager

And honestly, most small businesses have no idea it’s happening to them.

We had a client call us a few months back, pretty shaken up. Someone had called their front desk pretending to be from their VoIP provider, said there was a billing issue, and asked the receptionist to “verify the account.” She handed over the login credentials without a second thought. By the time anyone realized what had happened, the attacker had already rerouted their calls.

That’s vishing. Voice phishing over the phone. And it has exploded lately.

How bad is it?

Vishing attacks surged 442 percent in 2024, according to CrowdStrike, and the first half of 2025 has already exceeded all of last year. Seven out of ten organizations have been hit. The average business loss, once you factor in investigation and downtime, is around $1.5 million per incident.

Small businesses are targeted specifically because attackers assume formal procedures are missing. A lot of the time, they are right.

Three calls your team needs to recognize

“Hi, this is IT support…”
The caller claims there is an urgent security issue and asks to verify a login. Username, password, maybe a code texted to a phone. Once they have it, they are in. This is the most common one we see.

“We’ve updated our payment details…”
A fake vendor calls to say their banking information has changed. It sounds routine. Your next payment goes straight to the scammer, and the issue is usually not discovered until the real vendor asks why they have not been paid.

“It’s the boss, I need you to handle something.”
An urgent request for a wire transfer or gift cards, supposedly from an owner or manager. Sometimes the voice is cloned. The pressure to act fast is the strategy.

What you can do about it this week

None of this requires a large IT budget. Most of it comes down to policy and habit.

The single most important step is making “call them back” a non‑negotiable rule. Any request involving money, payment details, or login credentials must be verified through a second channel. Hang up, look up the number yourself, and call back using information you already have. It takes two minutes, and it stops most vishing attacks cold.

Just as important, train your team to treat urgency as a warning sign, not a reason to act faster. Every vishing script is built on pressure. When someone says, “This has to be fixed right now,” that is exactly when it is time to slow down.

Schedule an appointment with one of our experts or call (715) 551-6464.