[Chloé Palmas]

If they ask "for security, can you please confirm..." and the question is "your mother's maiden name?" they absolutely do use that line of questioning for other companies. If it is the security question then you absolutely can and would be asked that, irrespective of company.

Now there are questions that I have set (involving lingerie for example) that only I would know that I only ever set - if they ask that they either have hacked into the central system of the company that I either set it with, or they are who they claim to be.

If they preface it with "the reason we need to talk to you" and I know that to be legitimate and they also say "but first we need to verify security" and I can tell that it is a legitimate number they are calling for it is entirely likely that it is a legitimate call and not a scam. But those variables will be down to you to figure out at the time. If you can think on your feet, you should be fine.