Orbex Solutions » Telephone fraud prevention

Telephone fraud prevention

Telephone fraud prevention automatically protects your phone system/PBX from hacking, toll fraud, dial-through fraud…

Telephone fraud prevention illustration

Phreaking – Or Dial-Through fraud is very big business and a target for organized criminals. If your phone system is attacked, you will be left with a huge phone bill which you will be expected to pay because you are responsible for calls made via your phone system and not your carrier. This bill could be 10 – 100 times higher than your usual phone bill and sometimes even a lot higher. Everyone is at risk and all phone systems need to be secured against this crime to protect you from potentially significant financial losses.

Orbex Solutions can provide better security for you!
Mobile fraud

Thankfully mobile fraud is not a common issue but on the odd occasions that it does happen the values associated tend to be high as the fraudsters target high cost call traffic.

The most common types of mobile fraud are either when a handset is stolen and the SIM is then used to call international premium rate numbers or when someone poses as a legitimate company to take out new connections and the SIMs are then used again to make calls to international premium rate numbers.

Examples:
1 x Stolen handset, 12 hours until reported = £3000 calls to Eastern Europe

10 x new business connections, first 72 hours usage = £26000 calls to the Caribbean

Telephone fraud prevention
While fraud is not always easy to spot we do provide a number of tools that can help identify and limit the impact to your business.
  • Cost alerts
  • Usage alerts
  • Bars that can limit international, roamed and premium rate calling
  • Data Caps
  • Account passwords in order to prevent third party or thieves accessing your account details

Please note that our connections have no Caps so it is important that customer who require Caps or Bars to email us their requirement.

Secure your devices with Telephone fraud prevention
Secure your devices with Telephone fraud prevention
While fraud is not always easy to spot we do provide a number of tools that can help identify and limit the impact to your business.
  • Cost alerts
  • Usage alerts
  • Bars that can limit international, roamed and premium rate calling
  • Data Caps
  • Account passwords in order to prevent third party or thieves accessing your account details

Please note that our connections have no Caps so it is important that customer who require Caps or Bars to email us their requirement.

If you would like more information on the above tools please feel free to contact us and we would be more than happy to run through the options you have.
Tall Fraud Protection

Control Phreak is much more than an anti-toll fraud system though. To protect you against internal fraud It also lets you decide how your staff uses your phone system. In addition you can also use Control Phreak to block time-wasting, nuisance inbound calls.

Control Phreak protects your phone system from phreaking, toll fraud, dial-through fraud and hacking 24/7 without any manual intervention.  It automatically and immediately detects and kills all malicious call traffic while allowing your legitimate call traffic to flow.  You set your own security rules leaving you in complete control of your phone system.

For more information call 08444 150 120 or email support@orbex.co.uk

Callista logo

Callista - Control Phreak

Callista provides a solution to this threat which is called “Control Phreak”. Control Phreak is an anti-toll fraud, anti-phreaking system which protects your phone system from phreaking, toll fraud, dial-through fraud and hacking completely automatically and around the clock without any intervention. It automatically and immediately detects and kills all fraudulent orologi replica call traffic while allowing all legitimate call traffic to flow through your phone system so that your business is never compromised and it’s on alert unobtrusively and silently 24/7.

Control Phreak - Security

Control Phreak monitors every event that occurs on your phone system from picking up the handset to ending a call.
Each event is instantly evaluated against your own predefined security rules which are divided into three groups :

Outbound call rules. All outbound calls are instantly matched against your rules and if calls are made to unauthorised numbers, the system will instantly kill them.

Inbound call rules. All inbound calls to any of your extensions are instantly matched against your rules and if these calls are from unauthorised numbers, the system will instantly kill them. Caller Line Identification (CLI) is required on all of your trunks (exchange lines) for this feature.

Diverted call rules. By default Control Phreak kills all calls diverting through your phone system. A diverted call is an inbound call to your phone system which is diverted to an external number. This is the typical route of phreakers. You can use your diverted call rules to authorise calls only to specific numbers such as your company mobiles or your branch offices.

Control Phreak instantly distinguishes an outbound call from a diverted call which means all unauthorised call traffic is automatically blocked while allowing all of your legitimate call traffic to flow without any restriction.

Retell Voice Firewall has been specifically designed to be simple to install, and to work with any telephone system. Voice Firewall connects easily between the phone system and the network termination point, with no need to turn off trunk to trunk dialling if your system is using this functionality. What`s more, Voice Firewall does not limit ANY of the existing functionality of your telephone system.

To provide a better security for you Orbex Solutions is giving 15% off on these anti-phreaking/toll fraud systems to all our customers with lines and calls!

Voice security FAQ

PBXs are the most common vehicle phreakers use for their crimes. Only you have access control over your phone system. So you`re responsible not only for its security but also for all call charges incurred from it. Moreover, only you can identify which calls made from your phone system are legitimate and which are fraudulent.

Phreakers search globally for unsecured phone systems to harvest for their own use. And this search is continuous. They don`t care how big or small your business is. No one is safe. Worst of all for you if you do get hacked, you`re probably less likely to be able to absorb the average loss incurred from a phreaking event and the size of the bill would be enough to bankrupt many organizations. It`s really important you and your staff understand the need to protect your business and especially your phone system from this fraud now and to take steps to prevent unauthorized access to it.

The resident security in your PBX was enough to keep you secure in the past but not now. Phreakers, like the criminals, are becoming cleverer all the time in ways to a attack and invade your phone system and they can easily circumvent this security now.

You or your company will. You are responsible for all calls made from your phone system whether or not you or your staff made them and whether or not your carrier/airtime provider has taken any steps or managed to stop or block fraudulent calls.

The only sure way to protect yourself from this particular and financially damaging crime is with automatic, always-on, active voice security like Control Phreak which won`t let phreakers anywhere near your phone system. The risk of becoming a victim of this fraud is already really high and increasing rapidly all the time but only you can control whether you are attacked or not. It is much easier to prevent an attack than to try to recover your business from a phreaking attack. Phreaking is a preventable crime…

Whether you have become the victim of constant marketing phone campaigns or the target of a malicious caller, our nuisance call guide can help.

Sales and marketing calls are made with a view of promoting and selling you a product or service and there are three common types that people receive:

Live sales calls are your typical sales or marketing calls made by a call centre operator with a view to selling or promoting a product or service. You are likely to receive these from companies you regularly deal with, like your bank, but they can also be cold calls from companies you haven’t dealt with before.

While companies are allowed to make these calls, they must stop if you ask them to. Marketing or sales calls should always be courteous and you should never feel pressured or threatened. You also shouldn’t be receiving excessive numbers of calls over short periods of time.

Recorded messages are when calls are not made by an operator and instead you simply hear a recorded message. These aren’t usually made by the company or the service advertised, but rather by an organisation who will then sell on the information gathered to companies offering the service in question. You should not be receiving recorded messages without giving prior permission.

Silent or abandoned calls are where the phone rings but when you pick up you hear nothing on the other end. These come from call centres as well, but are where the call centre uses an automatic dialler to make calls. Once the call gets through to you, it’s supposed to connect to an operator. However, there’s not always an operator available, so the receiver is simply left with a dead line.

There are a number of services and solutions available that can help you cut down on the number of cold calls you receive:

Telephone preference service (TPS) is a free service. It is the official central opt out register on which you can record your preference not to receive unsolicited sales or marketing calls. It is a legal requirement that all organisations (including charities, voluntary organisations and political parties) do not make such calls to numbers registered on the TPS unless they have your consent to do so.

Organisations with which you have an ongoing relationship, for example those who regard you as a customer, (or in the case of charities – a donor) may well gather your consent during the early stages of your relationship with them and will therefore be entitled to call you even if your number is registered on TPS, unless you have previously told them specifically that you object to them calling you for marketing purposes.

If you are still receiving calls after signing up to the TPS, then you can complain to the Direct Marketing Commission.

If you are receiving unwanted recorded messages you can report these to the Information Commissioner’s Office.

Ex-directory: making your phone number ex-directory means it won’t be available in the phone book or directory inquiries, making it harder for marketing companies to find in the first place.

Read the small print online: some online companies and social media sites can pass your contact details onto third party marketing companies when you sign up with them. Make sure you read the small print on anything you agree to and opt out of having your contact details passed on.

Which? the consumer support group, are currently running a campaign to push for the government and regulators to do more to tackle the issue of nuisance calls. We’re happy to support the campaign and we encourage our customers to do the same.

You can find lots of other information on their page too. Including top tips for avoiding nuisance calls and the rights you have in place to protect you.

Scam calls are calls from fraudsters tricking you into believing you’re speaking with a trusted company or person. There are many different scams that fraudsters will attempt to use to get personal or confidential information from you.

If you know the number that called you, it’s really easy to report a scam call to us. When you report a call, we’ll investigate and, where appropriate, stop the number from contacting you or any other Orbex customer in the future.

The best way to report scam calls is e-mail. Simply e-mail support@orbex.co.uk to help us block these numbers.

Malicious calls are calls that contain obscene suggestions, abusive language or even personal threats. If you have been receiving malicious calls, we recommend the following:

Stay calm and avoid talking to the caller: it’s likely they will feed on your reaction so you should avoid slamming the phone down. Instead, put the phone on the side and walk away for a few moments before hanging up.

Don’t give away any personal information: it’s best to avoid answering the phone with your name and number. If you have children, you should tell them this too.

Don’t disclose too much in answerphone messages: make sure you avoid giving away unnecessary information or letting them know you’re not in. Simply say you cannot get to the phone.

There are also a number of call features that can help you with malicious calls. These include:

Caller display: this will allow you to see the caller’s number before picking up, allowing you to avoid calls from specific numbers or allowing you to report the number.

Malicious, abusive or threatening calls are a crime, so if you continue to receive them or you feel the threats to you or your family are serious and immediate, you should speak to the police. Make sure you keep a note of call details like times, dates and content. This will make any potential investigation easier.

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Based in central London, we specialise in finding the right voice and data solutions for small and medium size organisations.
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