Notes

Phone Fraud Still a Problem For U.S. Businesses
What happened to telecom fraud? Is it still a problem? Should you as an owner of a company be concerned? Despite the huge advancements in security technology and greater telecommunication security and awareness for customers telephone fraud remains to pose a significant issue for every business. The thought of the possibility of thousands in the loss of a company because of fraud on the phone is a daunting thought. Phone fraud can still cause financial ruin to your business. This is terrifying. Even with the advent of VOIP technology, hackers have continued to figure out ways to hack into even the most complex systems. Companies like yours and mine can be harmed by this.

There are three primary kinds of phone fraud that most of us should be concerned with and that will be addressed in this article. call a phone (cramming or slamming) as well as fraud on the proprietary phone system (PBX Key System, PBX), voice mail fraud and, the newest challenge, fraud in VoIP phones.

Nuisance Fraud: The majority of us, as professionals, have at one point or another come across nuisance fraud, also known as slamming or cramming. It is not a common practice to make or break a business when it occurs, but it can drain profits if it is not checked on the phone bill.

Cramming is when a third-party provider charges for services and fees that the customer did not authorize. These charges are neither ordered or desired by your company. These charges can include products and services like bogus voice mail charges operator assisted calls, call card services, monthly service fees as well as credit check services. Additionally, fake yellow pages and white pages advertising may also show up on your business telephone invoices or be billed to you directly.

Cramming is the practice of adding charges to a subscriber's phone bill for services that were neither ordered nor desired by the customer or for the cost of services or calls which were not disclosed to the customer. These charges are often imposed by dishonest third party suppliers of information or communication services that telephone companies are required to allow to be placed on the bill.

Have you looked over your local phone bill and noticed strange costs from "other service providers that you do not recognize?" If so, chances are very good that you've been charged a lot. Large businesses may have hidden costs in their invoices which are difficult to identify. They may continue to run for years , without anyone conscious.

What are the best ways to obtain refunds and stop cramming? First, contact your local phone firm and request an inverse of the charges. The majority of cases will be retracted. If they do not cooperate, call the FCC or your state's attorney general and the FTC to lodge an FTC complaint. However, first let the person who crammed you know that you would like give them the chance to refund your money.


Slamming occurs when call cell phone provides long distance, local or local toll services and an unauthorised switch or alteration. Slamming can be frustrating as untruthful phone companies can easily change or "pick" your long-distance service to their plans at a higher rate than the one you selected. You still have to switch all your lines to the right long distance provider , and then get a refund. What can you do to avoid it? Request that reverse phone number " on your phone lines. If you want access to all your long-distance, local and mobile phone accounts, request the carrier to provide an official password. You can restrict access to the accounts to two people.

check here within the phone system and voice mail: These kinds of frauds remain common for many businesses. They will persist so long as there's PBX and Key-type telephone systems. call cell phone can be costly and hackers are able to gain access. It is easier to avoid this type of fraud than fixing it after it's occurred. We have to admit it hackers, like the rest of criminals are inefficient. They'll just leave your company and pursue other things if they are protected with the right safeguards. First, ensure that the master default passwords that are provided by your phone's manufacturer have been changed to your current address. Hackers know these passwords and can easily access your system if they have access. Many of these master passwords for phone systems (i.e. : Avaya, Siemens, Nortel, Mitel, Cisco) are on the internet, available to anyone. A password change is done by making an email to the company that manages your telephone systems.

Also, make sure that your remote access to your phone systems are secured. Access to your phone system remotely can be secured by using encryption technology. Next, make sure that your employees don't make use of passwords that are easy to remember, such as "1111" for accessing their voice mail boxes. These passwords are easily stolen. You could also set up your voice mail system so that it prompts employees to change their passwords at least every 90 days. If employees quit the company, ensure that you delete their unused voicemail boxes as soon as you can. Why? The hacker takes control of the voicemail box and starts recording "yes" The hacker then contacts an outside operator and places a third party. The operator says, do you agree to third party charges for Mr. Jones' call and the voice mail box answers, "yes" as programmed.

Companies today face another major threat from weak links in their personnel, especially the receptionist at the company. This is sometimes described as "social engineering fraud." The employees and your receptionist must be alert to any call received in which someone could be identified as someone who is testing the lines of the company behind the phone. They could say, "I'm with the phone company and I'm running an experiment on your phone systems. please transfer me to a particular extension." Transferring a person to certain digits first accesses an outside telephone line "dialing 9" and "dialing the number 0" connects to the outside operator, who will facilitate a call to anywhere in the world to the crooks. The calls are then back billed to your company. Hackers have also been used to commit other crimes like finding out who the board members for large companies and then impersonating that individual when they call that company. Since board members don't have contact with receptionists as frequently as employees, it is possible for the receptionist to not recognize their voice. However, because of the board members' prestige, authority or standing in the business, receptionists are aware of their power, so the perpetrator can get unlimited transferring ability to commit crimes. call cell phone is usually not identified until after the receipt of the phone bill. Inform the employees and receptionists of this scheme. Numerous companies milked for thousands of dollars in overseas calls as a result of this ploy.

If your business has a toll-free inbound number, be on alert! Hackers can dial the toll-free number and make use of codes and features for calls abroad and also to charge charges on paid calling services.

You must also limit the conference feature and call forwarding on the phone system of your business. This will stop hackers from transferring your calls to your. To ensure your phone system's security, meet with your vendor of phone systems to perform a vulnerability assessment. Many of the largest phone equipment manufacturers, Siemens, Avaya, Nortel and Mitel have security bulletins and security support programs to help ensure that your system is secure and up to date.

Voice over IP Fraud Third and last concern about the fraud of voice calls in telecoms. Although fraud using voice over IP is still very new, it is becoming more frequent. As mentioned previously in the section about phone system fraud, changing the system passwords within your VOIP telephone system is among the most effective methods to stop this kind of fraud.

There is now more attention paid to recent attacks on VOIP systems, but actual instances of fraud documented are just beginning to emerge as problematic. Two men were arrested in 2007 for routing calls through an ports that were not protected by other companies in order to transfer them to providers. They routed half a billion calls to a VoIP service in the span of three weeks. Federal investigators believe that they made as much as $1m through the scam. While actual instances of fraud involving VOIPs are uncommon but it is possible to cause severe damage through exploiting security gaps and weaknesses, which are becoming more common.

VoIP hackers are able to use system passwords to gain access to company VoIP voice systems, the potential to take millions of minutes of long distance. How? Hackers research VOIP vendor security bulletins and obtain public information on company IP addresses that are posted on the internet, which allows them to hack into the systems of clients. Hackers create and use custom software code to decipher access codes, access gateways and ports for data as well as hack into computers. Hackers are able to use default or poorly chosen passwords.

This can be stopped and you should keep up to date with the most current technologies for security and fraud prevention advice. Contact your VOIP equipment vendors to obtain specific information about the best way to safeguard your system. call a phone might be beneficial to engage a professional to conduct an audit on your security of your VOIP system, especially if it is an enormous number of them. The most recent encryption methods are essential for IP business users and IT managers. They also need to train and monitor employees in order to ensure effective security of the company's data.

The best method to know if a telecom fraud is being committed against an organization is to conduct an extensive telecommunications audit and thorough review of the phone system.




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