What has happened to telecom fraud? Does it still exist? Should you as an owner of a business be worried? Despite the huge advancements in security technology and enhanced security measures for telecommunications and customer awareness fraud on the phone continues to be a major concern for every business. The mere notion of thousands of dollars of loss to businesses as a result of fraud committed by phone call s is terrifying. Fraudulent phone calls can cause financial damage to your business. This is terrifying. Even after the introduction of VOIP technology, hackers continue to discover ways to hack complex systems, and companies like mine could still be affected.

There are three major types of phone fraud that the majority of us should be concerned with and that will be discussed in this piece. Nuisance fraud (cramming and slamming) and the proprietary phone system (PBX and key system) fraud, voice mail fraud and the newest challenge, VOIP phone system fraud.

Nuisance fraud business professionals are more likely to encounter nuisance fraud at some point or another. Also known as slamming, scrambling, and other types of fraud. While nuisance fraud is unlikely to cause a major disruption to any business, it can deplete profits if it’s not mentioned on the bill.

Cramming occurs when a third-party provider charges fees or services that the client hasn’t approved. The charges are not authorised or requested by your business. They could include items and services like bogus voice mail charges operators assisted calls call card services, monthly service fees and credit check services. Additionally, you could be charged directly for fake white pages or yellow pages advertising.

Cramming is the practice of adding charges to a subscriber’s telephone bill for services that were not ordered or desired by the customer or for fees for services and calls that were not disclosed to the customer. These charges are typically imposed by dishonest third party providers of data or communications services that phone companies are required to permit to be added to the bill.

Have cell phone looked at your local telephone bill and noticed strange costs from “other service providers that you do not recognize?” If so, it’s likely that you’ve been crammed. Large companies may conceal charges on their bills that are difficult to spot. They can continue for years without anyone being aware.

What can you do to stop the cramming process and receive refunds? The first step is to contact your local provider and ask for them to cancel the charges to the party who was responsible for the cramming. In most cases they will. To file a formal complaint against them, contact the FCC, the FTC, or your state attorney general. First, inform the crammer that you want to give them the opportunity to repay your funds.

Slamming can occur in the event of an unauthorised switch or change in a service provider that provides local and local tolls or long distance services. Slamming can be frustrating as fraudulent phone companies could easily change or “pick” your long-distance service for their plans, at a more expensive cost than the one you chose. However, you must switch all your lines to the right long distance service provider and receive a refund. What can you do to avoid it? Ask the carrier to put the “pic freeze” on your phone lines. For access to all your local, long-distance and mobile phone accounts, request the carrier to provide an official password. Limit reverse phone number to these accounts to two employees.

Frauds within the phone system as well as voice mail kinds of frauds remain a problem for many companies. They will persist so long as there’s PBX and Key-type phone systems. Long distance calls can be costly and hackers have easy access. free call of this type of fraud is much simpler than repairing it after it’s occurred and let’s admit it, as with most criminals hackers are lazy, and they’ll leave your company in peace and head to a different location if your system has adequate security measures in place. First, make sure that your phone system’s manufacturer has supplied master default passwords for your phone and voicemail systems are updated at the time of your visit. Hackers are able to access these passwords and could hack your system easily if they are able. Many of these master passwords used for phones (i.e. many of the master passwords (i.e. Avaya Siemens, Nortel Mitel, Cisco, Mitel, Mitel and Mitel) can be found on the internet. A password change is done by making an inquiry with the company responsible for maintaining services to your telephone systems.

Make sure your remote access to you phones is secure. reverse phone number can often be done with the help of security encryption technology to secure remote access to your systems. Next, make sure that your employees don’t use easy passwords like “1111” to access their voice mail accounts. These passwords can be easily stolen. Set your voice mail system to auto remind employees update their passwords every 90 days at minimum. Be call a phone to erase all voice messages which haven’t been utilized by employees after they leave the company. Why? The hacker gains control of the voicemail box and records “yes” He then places the call with a third party, and tells the outside operator to dial the number for your deceased employee’s old mailbox. The operator then asks if you are willing to pay for third-party calls to cover Mr. Jones’ calls. The voice mail box replies, “yes”, as programmed.

Today, companies face a different danger from weak connections in their personnel, especially the company receptionist. This is sometimes described as “social engineering fraud.” Employees and your receptionist should be alert for a call that is received in which someone could identify themselves as an employee of the phone company testing lines. They might say, “I’m with the phone company and am conducting tests 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 can facilitate calls to any location in the world for the crooks. Calls are then billed to your company. Hackers are also known to use other ploys such as identifying board members for large companies and then impersonating the person when they call that company. Since board members don’t communicate with receptionists as frequently as employees, it’s possible for receptionists to not be able to recognize their voice. The authority of a board member means receptionists have the ability to transfer unlimited amounts of money to the caller. The crime is usually not discovered until after the arrival of the phone bill. This scheme should be made known to both receptionists and employees. This crime was used by many companies to make millions of dollars from international calls.

If your business has a toll-free inbound number be aware! Hackers can call in on the number toll free and utilize codes and features to place calls to other countries or even ring up service charges on paid-calling services.

You should also restrict call forwarding and conference features in your company’s telephone system. This will stop hackers from transferring your calls to your. To ensure that your phone system’s security, meet with the vendor of your phone system to conduct a vulnerability evaluation. A lot of the top telephone equipment makers, such as Siemens, Nortel, Nortel Mitel, and Mitel have security bulletins to aid in keeping your phone security system secure.

Fraud through VOIP Third and last telecom voice fraud issue to be discussed is the most current threat to companies and that’s fraud through VOIP. Voice over IP fraud is in its early stages but becoming more prevalent. Again, as previously stated in the earlier part about phone system fraud, one of the most effective methods to stop this kind of fraud is to alter the system passwords on your VoIP phone system.

There is starting to be increasing attention to recent hacks on VOIP systems, however actual instances of documented fraud are now just beginning to emerge as problematic. Two men were arrested in 2007 after they routed calls through an unprotected network port at other companies to route them onto providers. The two men sent half a billion calls to a VoIP provider during three weeks. Federal investigators think they made as much as $1 million from the scam. However, online phone call of fraud involving VOIPs on these systems are rare, however, there is a lot of potential for harm as vulnerabilities and holes in security are becoming more frequent and easily exploited by skilled hackers.

VoIP hackers can hack passwords on corporate systems to gain access to VoIP systems. They can also get millions of minutes of long distance service. How? Hackers research the security bulletins of VOIP vendors and gather public information on company IP addresses posted on the internet. find here allows them to hack into client systems. Hackers create and use custom software codes to crack access codes, access data ports and gateways as well as hack into computers. check here can find it easy to use default or poorly picked passwords.

To counteract these attacks on your company and keep updated with the latest security technology and VOIP fraud prevention tips, consult with the VOIP equipment suppliers and ask them specific questions about the best ways to safeguard your system. It is possible to have a professional perform an audit on your security of your VOIP system, especially if it is an extensive one. The latest encryption techniques are required for IP business users as well as IT managers. They must also ensure that employees are trained and monitored in order to ensure effective security of data from companies.

The best method to know whether a fraud in the telecom industry is being perpetrated on an organization is to conduct an extensive telecommunications audit and complete phone system review.