Notes

Phone Fraud Still a Problem For U.S. Businesses
What happened to fraud in the telecom industry? Do you think it is still around? Should you as an owner of a company be concerned? Despite cell phone in technology for security and enhanced security measures for telecommunications and awareness for customers fraud on the phone continues to be a major issue for all businesses. It's terrifying to consider the possibility of cost of thousands for an enterprise due to phone fraud. However, phone fraud is still a threat that has the potential to make your business unfit for the market and is terrifying. Even with the introduction of VOIP technology, the thieves have continued to figure out ways to hack even most complicated systems and companies like yours and mine can be harmed by this.

There are three major types of phone frauds that all of us should be concerned about and which will be addressed in this piece. Nuisance fraud (cramming or hitting), fraud on the telephone system owned by the company (PBX Key System, PBX) Voice mail fraud, and the most recent problem, fraud on VOIP phones.

Nuisance Fraud: The majority of us who are professionals will at some time or another come across nuisance fraud, otherwise known as slamming or cramming. While nuisance fraud is unlikely to cause a major disruption to any business, it can deplete revenue if it is not included on the phone bill.

Cramming happens when a third party provider charges for services or fees that the customer has not approved. The charges cannot be requested or requested by your business. These charges can include products and services such as bogus voice mail charges, operator assisted calls, call card services, monthly service fees and credit check services. Also, bogus 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 not requested nor ordered by the customer, or for fees for calls or services that were not properly disclosed to the consumer. These charges are typically made by untruthful third-party providers of data or communications services that phone companies must allow to be billed on the bill.

Have you ever looked at your local phone bill and seen odd costs from "other service providers that you aren't familiar with?" It is likely that you've been victimized. For large businesses they are often buried deep within the bills and are difficult to notice and may go on for many years, month after month, and not be noticed.

How do you fight fraud and obtain refunds? Start by calling your local phone provider and ask for them to reverse the charge to the offending party. In the majority of cases, they will. To file a complaint against them, call the FCC, the FTC, or the state attorney general. The first step is to inform the crammer that you would like to offer them the opportunity to refund your funds.

Slamming is when a carrier provides long distance, local or local toll service , and an unintentional switch or change. It is a frustrating experience because fraudulent phone companies can easily to change or "pic" your long distance service onto their plans, often at a much higher rate than what your chosen service provider has offered. If you do discover the scam, there's still the headache of switching all your lines back to the long distance service that you have chosen and then requesting the fraudulent company to issue you a reimbursement. What can you do to stop it? Contact your service provider to set up the "pic freeze" on your phone lines. Request an official password for access on your all of your local, cellular, and long distance accounts. You should also limit access to these accounts to two important employees of your company.

Frauds in the phone system and voice mail: These kinds of frauds continue to be common for many businesses. They'll continue to be a problem as long as there are PBX and Key-type phone systems. Long distance calls can cost a lot and hackers can gain access to. It is easier to avoid these kinds of crimes than fixing it after it's happened. phone lookup have to admit it, hackers, just like other criminals are inefficient. They'll just leave your company and pursue another one if you don't have adequate security measures. call phone is to ensure that your phone system's manufacturer has provides master passwords for your voicemail and telephone systems are changed when you change your location. Hackers are able to access these passwords and are able to attack your system with ease if they are able. Actually, many of these phone system master passwords (i.e. : Avaya, Siemens, Nortel, Mitel, Cisco) are on the internet, available to anyone. You can change your password by calling the company that manages your phone system.

You should also ensure that your telephone systems' remote access is secured. This can be accomplished with the help of encryption technologies for security to ensure remote access to your system. Next, make sure that your employees do not use easy passwords like "1111" to access their voicemail boxes. They can easily be stolen. Also, set your voice mail system to automatically ask employees to change their passwords each 90 days, at a minimum. When employees leave the company, make sure that you remove their unused voicemail boxes as soon as you can. Why? phone call online takes control of the voicemail box and records the phrase "yes." The hacker then calls an outside call center and makes a call to a third party. The operator asks you if you are willing to pay third-party charges for Mr. cell phone ' calls. The voice mail box replies, "yes", as it was programmed.

Another major threat to companies in the present is the issue of weak relationships in their employees, specifically the receptionist at the company. It is commonly referred to as "social engineering fraud". Your employees and receptionists should be on alert for any phone call that an individual may identify himself/herself as someone trying to test the lines of the company that owns the phone. You might hear them speak to you "I'm employed by your organization and I'm conducting tests on your telephone systems. Please transfer me to a particular extension." Transferring a person to certain digits first accesses an outside line "dialing 9" and "dialing the 0" opens the line to an outside operator who will make a call to anywhere in the world for the thieves. The calls are later being billed to your business. Hackers may also employ different techniques, for instance, finding the directors of large corporations and impersonating them on calls made to your company. The receptionist may not be able to recognize their voice, as typically board members don't interact with receptionists as much as employees do. But, because of the board members' prestige, influence or status within the business, receptionists are fully aware of their authority, and the person calling them can gain unlimited transfer power to commit crimes. The criminal usually isn't identified until after the receipt of the phone bill. This scam should be disclosed to both receptionists and employees. This crime was used by a variety of companies to earn millions of dollars from international calls.

Be on the lookout for a toll-free phone number that your business could make calls to inbound numbers. Hackers can call in on the toll-free number and make use of features and codes to make calls from overseas or to ring up service charges on paid-calling services.

It is also recommended to limit the conference feature and call forwarding in your company's telephone system. This will stop hackers from transferring your calls to your. To ensure your phone system's security, you should meet with the vendor of your phone system to perform a vulnerability assessment. Many of the largest telephone equipment manufacturing vendors, Siemens, Avaya, Nortel and Mitel have security bulletins and security support programs that will help keep your systems secure and up to date.

Voice over IP Fraud: This is the third and final issue with the fraud of voice calls in telecoms. Fraud via Voice over IP is still in its infancy but becoming more prevalent. As mentioned previously in the section on phone system fraud, changing the system passwords within the VOIP phone system is among the best ways you can stop this kind of fraud.

find here against VOIP systems are beginning to attract more attention, but the actual instances of fraud are just beginning to be a problem. Two men were arrested in 2007 after they routed calls through an unprotected network port at other companies in order to connect them with providers. Two men transferred half a billion phone call s to VoIP providers over three weeks. Federal investigators believe that the two made as much as $1m through the scam. But, actual instances of VOIP fraud using these systems are rare, however, there is plenty of potential harm because weaknesses and gaps in security are becoming common and are more easily exploitable by resourceful hackers.

VOIP hackers are able to use passwords from company systems in order to access VoIP systems. They can also steal millions of minutes of long distance service. How? Hackers research the security bulletins issued by VOIP providers and gather public information on company IP addresses publicized on the internet, which allows them to hack into the systems of clients. They design and apply specific software to decode access codes, and gain access to exposed data ports and computer systems and data gateways. Hackers might be able to easily utilize default passwords or badly selected passwords.


These attacks can be countered and you must stay up to date with the most recent technologies for security and fraud prevention guidelines. Talk with your VOIP equipment providers to obtain specific information about the best way to safeguard your system. It might be beneficial to engage a professional to conduct a security audit of your VOIP system, especially if it is an extensive one. IP business customers and IT managers must use the latest encryption techniques for their network access and also train and supervise their employees on effective safeguarding of company data as well as IP system information.

A thorough audit of telecommunications is the most effective way to determine if there is any type of telecom fraud within an company.




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