For decades, cybersecurity strategies have focused on defending systems against malicious code, compromised credentials, and phishing emails. But a growing threat bypasses firewalls and inboxes altogether: the human voice. Vishing, or voice phishing, is no longer an emerging risk. It is now a proven method used by threat actors to breach corporate defenses through live, real-time manipulation. As attacks become more sophisticated, organizations need more than awareness. They need exposure. That’s where vishing simulations come in.

The Hidden Risks of Real-Time Conversations

Unlike emails, phone calls demand immediate responses. There's no time to hover over a suspicious link or forward a message to IT. The attacker speaks, and the employee reacts — often under pressure, often alone. It's this synchronous nature of voice communication that makes vishing so effective. The caller can adjust tone, improvise, build trust, or escalate urgency on the fly. And with generative AI making it easier than ever to clone voices or script convincing dialogues, even trained employees can be caught off guard.

In early 2025, several high-profile European executives, including Massimo Moratti (former owner of Inter Milan) and Patrizio Bertelli (chairman of Prada), were targeted by a deepfake voice scam. Posing as Italy’s Defense Minister Guido Crosetto, attackers requested urgent funds for a fabricated hostage crisis. The voice was AI-generated. The pretext was convincing.

The result: Massimo Moratti was deceived into transferring nearly €1 million to a foreign bank account, believing he would be reimbursed by the Bank of Italy.

Italian authorities later traced and froze the funds in the Netherlands.

What Is a Vishing Simulation?

A vishing simulation is a controlled exercise where organizations mimic voice-based social engineering attacks to evaluate employee reactions and prepare them for real-world scenarios. These aren’t generic robocalls or random spam — effective simulations replicate the nuances of modern attacks. That means context-aware scripts, targeted language, realistic caller behavior, and layered pretexts (e.g., a prior email, a reference to a known internal process).

The goal isn’t to trap employees but to build reflexes. In a real attack, hesitation is the thin line between breach and defense. Simulations allow teams to experience those moments safely, reflect on them, and adjust their behavior accordingly.

Why Vishing Training Requires Simulation

Traditional cybersecurity training focuses heavily on email. That’s no longer enough. The nature of vishing makes it difficult to teach through passive content. You can’t prepare someone for a pressurized phone call with a slide deck.

Vishing simulations introduce stress, ambiguity, and realism into the training loop. They allow employees to hear how convincing a scam can sound. And they provide security teams with valuable data: Who picked up the call? Who followed the attacker’s instructions? Who questioned the legitimacy of the request? Who reported the incident in real time?

More importantly, they give employees a chance to fail — safely. Because in cybersecurity, the best lessons are often learned not in theory, but in practice.

The Role of AI in Scaling Vishing Simulation

Until recently, running vishing simulations required large budgets, actors, scheduling, and post-call debriefs. Today, with voice cloning and natural language AI, organizations can run hyper-realistic simulations at scale. These tools can recreate internal voices, simulate executive tone and cadence, and even hold brief back-and-forth exchanges with unsuspecting employees.

When combined with email or SMS pretexts, AI-driven vishing campaigns can test how teams respond to multi-step social engineering tactics. And because the content is programmable, security leaders can continuously adjust the difficulty level and scenario relevance over time.

Implementation: How to Do It Right

The quality of vishing simulations varies widely — and realism matters. To be effective, they must be tailored. A good simulation mirrors the organization’s structure, workflows, and known stress points. A call to finance about a vendor invoice hits differently than a call to HR about benefits access. Context is everything.

It’s also crucial to define how results are communicated. The goal is not to name and shame. It’s to build awareness, reinforce safe behaviors, and close real gaps. That requires follow-up: individual feedback, team-level insights, and practical reminders that stick.

Organizations just starting out may begin with narrow pilots: targeting one team, one scenario, one objective. Over time, programs can expand to simulate more complex attacks involving call + email chaining, identity spoofing, and credential harvesting.

More Than a Tool, It’s a Culture Shift

The most resilient companies don’t just test their employees — they support them. They normalize verification. They reward hesitation. They make it clear that taking five extra minutes to confirm a request is never a failure.

Running vishing simulations isn’t just about defense. It’s about shifting the default behavior across the organization: from reacting automatically to thinking critically. And in a world where a phone call can cost millions, that mindset is the real firewall.