Small Business Hit with $600,000 of Dial Through Fraud

A small business, a Remax realtor, was hit with $600,000 of Dial Through Fraud (DTF). I included an article below:

http://www.missourinet.com/2013/05/16/remax-office-owner-hit-by-phone-fraud-600000-bill/

The article does not give any details about the attack, but I bet the attacker exploited the victim's PBX and then generated a ton of inbound calls, which hair pinned out to premium numbers. I discussed this attack method in an April 12th post. Again, DTF/Toll Fraud is still a big issue - attackers set up premium numbers and then generate traffic to the numbers, through this hairpin attack. All enterprises are targets, but again, small businesses are especially attractive, because they don't have the expertise to secure their systems. They are also the least likely to notice the attack, until they get their phone bill...

I wish the victim well. The article says they are fighting the service provider, but that will be difficult. The calls do cost the service provider money - it is the enterprises job to secure their system.

Also, Ofcom, similar to the FCC in the United States, issued a warning that these types of attacks are on the rise:

http://www.mobilenewscwp.co.uk/2013/05/13/ofcom-warns-firms-about-rising-levels-of-dial-through-fraud/

Comments

[MOCET]

Hi, Mark:

I have seen this kind of thing firsthand myself, though not to the tune of $600000.

However, it is important to let readers know that this kind of thing happens all the time with analog and digital PBX systems as well as VoIP systems. In fact, in my experience, the typical VoIP provider has much better fraud detection for expensive routes than the telephone companies like AT&T and Verizon.

Please don't let your headline and post here be used to scare off potential consumer, SMB or enterprise VoIP customers. My point is that it actually may be easier to hack legacy systems for profit than a VoIP system.

Thanks.

marc.

[Mark Collier]

Thanks for the post - I agree. This issue has nothing to do with VoIP, as you say it can occur on any type of PBX/IP PBX system. Pretty much all of the issues I talk about can occur for TDM/legacy or VoIP/UC system.