What happened to telecom fraud? Is it still a problem? Are you, as a business owner should be worried? Despite the huge advancements in technology for security and greater telecommunication security and customer awareness telephone fraud remains to pose a significant issue for all businesses. It's frightening to imagine the possible cost of thousands for businesses because of phone fraud. It is a fact that phone fraud can put your business out of the market and is a scary proposition. Even with the introduction of VOIP technology, thieves continue to discover ways to hack even most complicated systems and companies like yours and mine can be harmed by this.
There are three primary kinds of phone fraud that most of us need to be concerned with and that will be dealt with in this piece. Nuisance fraud (cramming and slamming) as well as proprietary phone system (PBX and key system) fraud voice mail fraud, and the latest threat called VOIP phone system scam.
Nuisance fraud: Business professionals are likely to encounter nuisance fraud at one point or in another. Also known as slamming, cramming, and other forms of fraud. While nuisance fraud is unlikely to make or break any business, it can drain revenues if it's not included on the phone bill.
Cramming happens when a third party provider charges fees and services that the client has not authorized. These charges aren't ordered nor desired by your company. They could include items and services like bogus voice mail service fees operator assisted calls, call card services, monthly service fees and credit check services. Additionally, you could be charged directly for fake yellow pages or white pages that advertise.
Cramming is the addition of charges to a subscriber's phone bill for services which were neither ordered nor desired by the customer, or for fees for calls or services that weren't properly communicated to the customer. These charges are typically imposed by unscrupulous third-party suppliers of communications and data services that telephone companies are required, by law, to allow the third-party to place on the bill.
Did you ever look at your bill for your phone and find odd charges from "other providers" that you don't recognize? It is likely that you've been scammed. For big businesses these charges are hidden deep within the bills and are hard to see and may go on for many years, month after month, without getting noticed.
How can you get refunds and combat the practice of cramming? First, call your local telephone service provider and ask for them to cancel the charges to the person who did the wrong. In the majority of cases, they will. If they are not cooperating, make contact with the FCC as well as your state's attorney general, and the FTC to make an FTC complaint. First, you must let the crammer know that you'd like to give them the opportunity to refund your money.
Slamming can occur in the event of an unauthorised switch or change of a carrier that offers local and local tolls or long distance service. The problem is that dishonest phone companies can easily to change or "pic" your long distance service onto their plans, typically at a significantly higher rate than what your chosen provider had offered. If you do discover the scam, there's the issue of changing all of your lines back to the long distance provider you are supposed to have, and obtaining the fraudulent company to issue you a credit. How can you stop this? Ask the carrier to put an "pic freeze" on your phone lines. Insist on the use of a corporate password to gain access to every local, cellular and long distance telephone accounts. restrict all access to those accounts to two important employees of your company.
Phone system and voice mail fraud: These types of frauds are difficult for many companies and will continue to be a problem in the long run, as long as companies have PBX and Key type phone systems in place. Long distance calls are expensive and hackers are able to gain access. It's much easier to stop these kinds of crimes than to fix it once it has occurred. We have to admit it hackers, as with other criminals are lazy. They'll abandon your company and move on to something else if you have the proper safeguards. Make sure that the master default passwords that are provided by your phone's manufacturer are updated at the address you provide. Hackers are able to access these passwords and can attack your system with ease when they have access. A lot of these master passwords for phone systems (i.e. The majority of these master passwords (i.e. Avaya Siemens, Nortel Mitel, Cisco, Mitel, Mitel and Mitel) are available online. You can change your password by calling the company that services your phone system.
Also, make sure that the remote access to your telephone systems is secure. 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 accounts. They can easily be stolen. Make sure you set your voice mail system to auto prompt and ensure that employees update their passwords each 90 days at minimum. You must delete all voicemails that were not used by employees when they leave the company. Why? Hackers gain control over the voicemail system and then records "yes" He then places the call with a third party, and tells an outside agent to dial the number of your former employee's mailbox. The operator says, do you accept third party charges for Mr. Jones' call and the voice mail box responds, "yes" as programmed.
A major risk to businesses present day is the issue of weak links in employees, especially the receptionist at the company. This is often described as "social engineering fraud". Your employees and receptionists are on guard for any phone call that an individual may identify himself/herself as someone trying to test the lines for the company behind the phone. They might say, "I'm with the phone company and I'm conducting an experiment on your phone systems. I'd like to transfer you to a specific extension." Transferring a caller's number to specific digits first accesses an outside telephone line "dialing 9" and "dialing the 0" connects to the outside operator who can facilitate calls to any location in the world to the thieves. The calls are then billed back to your company. Hackers are also known to use other ploys like finding out who the directors of large corporations are and impersonating them on a call to that company. Because board members rarely interact with receptionists as often as employees, it's possible for receptionists to not recognize their voice. But, because of the board members' prestige, authority or standing in the business, receptionists are well aware of their power, which is why the person calling them can get unlimited transferring ability to carry out his crime. The crime is usually not identified until after the receipt of the phone bill. Be sure to inform the employee and receptionist of this scam. This scam was employed by many companies to make hundreds of dollars through international calls.
Be on the lookout for a toll-free number that your business can make calls to inbound numbers. Hackers can call in on the number toll free and utilize codes and features to place calls overseas or ring up service charges on paid calling services.
Another thing to do is restrict some calls forwarding and conferencing functions on your company phone system that could assist hackers in forwarding calls to your account. To ensure make phone call , talk to your provider of phone systems to perform a vulnerability assessment. Most of the larger manufacturers of telephone equipment, 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: This is the third and final issue with telecom voice fraud. The fraud involving Voice over IP is still in its infancy but it is becoming more common. As mentioned in the earlier section regarding phone system fraud, one of the most effective methods to avoid this type of scam is to change the system passwords in your VOIP phone system.
Recent hacks on VOIP systems are starting to draw more attention, however the actual instances of fraud are just beginning to be an issue. Two people were arrested in 2007 after they routed calls through an unprotected network port at different companies to transfer them to providers. Over three weeks, the two men routed nearly a million phone calls to a VOIP service. Federal investigators believe the two made up to $1 million from the scam. But, actual instances of fraud involving VOIPs on the systems are rare, however, there is plenty of risk for harm, as vulnerabilities and holes in security become prevalent and more easily exploitable by hackers who are skilled and resourceful.
VoIP hackers could hack into passwords on systems to gain access to corporate VOIP voice systems and have the potential to take millions of minutes of long distance service. How? What is the procedure? Hackers develop and utilize custom software codes to crack access codes, connect to data ports and gateways and even hack into computers. Hackers may be able to make use of default or poorly chosen passwords.
To defend your company and keep updated with the latest security technology and VOIP fraud prevention advice and recommendations, talk to your VOIP equipment providers and ask them specific questions about how to best protect your system. It might be beneficial having a professional conduct a security audit of your VOIP system, especially if it is a large one. The most recent encryption methods are essential for business IP users as well as IT managers. Additionally, they must educate and supervise employees in order to ensure the effective security of data from companies.
A thorough audit of telecommunications is the most effective way to determine whether there is any telecom fraud in an company.