Notes

Phone Fraud Still a Problem For USA Businesses
What happened to fraud in the telecom industry? Is it still a problem? Should you as an owner of a company be concerned? Phone fraud is a problem to all companies, despite the advancements in security technology. reverse phone lookup of thousands in loss to businesses as a result of fraud committed by phone calls is terrifying. The fact is that phone fraud has the potential to put your business out of business and that is an extremely scary prospect. Even with the introduction of VOIP technology, hackers continue to discover ways to hack even most complex systems. video phone call like yours and mine can continue to suffer from this.

There are three main types of phone fraud that the majority of us need to be concerned about and which will be dealt with in this article. Nuisance fraud (cramming and slamming), proprietary phone system (PBX and key system) fraud, voice mail fraud and the newest challenge that is VOIP phone system fraud.

Nuisance Fraud: Many of us, as professionals, have at one point or another encounter nuisance fraud, also known as slamming or cramming. While nuisance fraud is unlikely to ruin a company, it could drain profits if it's not included on the phone bill.

Cramming is when a third-party provider charges fees and services that the customer did not authorize. The charges are not authorised nor desired by your company. They could be for services such as bogus voicemail charges, operator-assisted phone calls, calling program programs monthly fees and credit check services and monthly service costs. Additionally, fake yellow pages and white pages advertising may also show up on your business telephone bills or be charged directly to you.

Cramming is the addition of costs to a subscriber's bill for services that were not requested nor ordered by the consumer, or for fees for services or calls that were not properly disclosed to the consumer. area code are usually imposed by dishonest third party suppliers of data or communication services that phone companies are required to permit to be added to the bill.

Have you ever looked over your bill for your phone and find strange charges from "other providers" that you didn't recognize? You're probably taken advantage of. Big companies could have hidden costs in their invoices that are difficult to spot. They may continue to run for years without anyone being conscious.

How can you get refunds or stop cramming? Start by contacting your local phone company and ask them for an inverse of the charges. In most cases they will. If they do not cooperate, make contact with the FCC as well as your state's attorney general and the FTC to make complaints. First, inform find here that you'd like to give them the opportunity to repay your cash.

Slamming occurs when a provider provides local, long distance or local toll services and an unauthorised switch or alteration. The experience can be very frustrating since dishonest phone companies may easily change or "pick" your long-distance services for their plans, at a more expensive cost than the one you chose. After you have discovered the fraud, there's an issue of switching all your lines back to the provider that you have chosen and then requesting the fraud service to give you a credit. How do you stop this? Request that the carrier place a "pic freeze" on your phone lines. If you want access to all your long-distance, local and cellular phone accounts, request the password for your company. Limit call phone number to the accounts to two employees.

Frauds within the phone system as well as voice mail types of frauds are still a problem for many companies. They'll be around as long as there are PBX and Key-type phone systems. Long distance calls can cost a lot and hackers have easy access. It's easier to prevent this type of fraud than to fix it once it's occurred. Let's face the truth, hackers, just like others, are lazy. They'll leave your business and move on to something else if you have the proper safeguards. Make sure the manufacturer of your phone system has supplied master default passwords for your voicemail and phone systems are changed at your place of residence. Hackers have access to these passwords and could attack your system with ease when they have access. A lot of these master passwords used for phones (i.e. : Avaya, Siemens, Nortel, Mitel, Cisco) are online and are accessible to anyone. Change your password by calling the organization that services your telephone system.

Also, make sure that your remote access to your phone systems are secure. This can be accomplished with the help of security encryption technology for remote access to your systems. Then, ensure that your employees aren't using simple passwords such as "1111" for accessing their voicemails. These passwords are easily stolen. It is also possible to set your voice mail system so that it reminds employees to change their passwords at least once every 90 days. When employees leave your company, ensure that you erase the voicemails they have not used in the shortest time possible. Why? Hackers gain control over the voicemail box and records "yes" The hacker calls an outside operator and places a third party. The operator asks if you're willing to pay third party charges for Mr. Jones' calls. The voice mail box replies, "yes", as it was programmed.


Today, companies face a different danger from weak connections in their staff, specifically the company receptionist. This is often called "social engineer fraud". Your receptionist and employees should be alert for a call that is received in which an individual may identify him/herself as someone working for the phone company who is conducting tests on lines. They might say "I'm with your company and I'm running tests on your telephone systems. Transfer me to a certain extension." To forward a caller's number to the correct number, first dial 9 to access an outside line. "Dialing the number" will access the operator, who is able to make a call anywhere around the globe. The calls are then charged back to the company. Hackers also have other tricks, such as finding the executives of large companies and impersonating them in calls to the company. Because board members do not have contact with receptionists as frequently as employees, it is possible that the receptionist will not be able to recognize their voice. However, due to a board member's prestige, influence or status within the organization, receptionists are fully aware of their power, which is why the person calling them can gain unlimited transfer power to carry out his crime. Most often the crime is not discovered until the bill arrives. Inform the employees and receptionists of this scam. Numerous businesses rake in thousands of dollars from international calls due to this crime.

Keep an eye out for a toll-free phone number that your business can make calls to inbound numbers. Hackers can call toll-free numbers and make use of codes and features for calls overseas and to ring up costs for paid-calling services.

Another thing you should do is restrict some call forwarding and conferencing features on your business phone system that might assist hackers to forward calls for you. To ensure your phone's security, meet with the vendor of your phone system to conduct a vulnerability evaluation. Most of the larger telephone equipment manufacturing vendors, Siemens, Avaya, Nortel and Mitel provide security bulletins and security support programs that will help keep your systems secure and up-to-date.

VoIP fraud Third and last telecom voice fraud issue to be discussed is the most current threat to companies and that's fraud through VOIP. 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.

There is starting to be increasing phone reverse lookup to recent attacks on VOIP systems, however actual instances of documented fraud are now just starting to become problematic. Two people were arrested in 2007 after they routed calls through an unprotected network port at other companies in order to route them onto providers. In the span of three weeks, two men routed half 1 million phone call s to a VoIP provider. Federal investigators believe the two made as much as $1m from the scam. But, actual instances of fraud involving VOIPs on these systems are still somewhat uncommon, but there is plenty of potential for harm since weaknesses and flaws in security become prevalent and more easily exploitable by resourceful hackers.

VoIP hackers are able to use system passwords for access to company VoIP voice systems, and can potentially steal millions of minutes of long distance. How? Hackers study the security bulletins issued by VOIP providers and collect public information about the IP addresses of companies that are posted on the internet, which permits them to gain access to the systems of clients. Hackers create and use customized software to decipher access codes, access gateways and ports for data and even hack into computer systems. Hackers might be able to effortlessly use default passwords or poorly selected passwords.

To defend your company and keep updated with the most recent security technologies and VOIP fraud prevention tips and recommendations, talk to your VOIP equipment vendors and ask them questions specific to how to best protect your systems. It is possible having a professional conduct a security audit of your VOIP system if you have a large one. The most recent encryption methods are essential for IP business users and IT managers. Additionally, they must educate and supervise employees in order to ensure the effective security of data from companies.

The best way to determine whether a telecom fraud being committed against an organization is to conduct an extensive telecommunications audit and an exhaustive review of the phone system.




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