Telecoms-related fraud can cause damages twice as large as credit card fraud, around $25 billion annually - and the amount is rising.
Added to this is the fact that Hosted UC and SIP service providers are fighting to maintain the highest profit margins per user in an increasingly competitive market. Revenue assurance departments try to increase that profitability by minimizing losses. However, for many providers toll fraud does not appear as an expected and accepted loss that's simply too hard to tackle. This is especially true for service businesses of medium size that have limited resources, but technology advancements have enabled them to alter this.
Fraud is more damaging than just financial. Fraud can disrupt operations of businesses and cause issues in relationships across the channel. If you implement a complete anti-fraud system service providers can cut down on customer churn as well as ensure that profit margins are protected and increased. You must take a look at telecom fraud specialists.
There are many challenges facing telecoms service providers
Rapid action and synchronicity
Tier 1 carriers are more slow than fraudsters. They have thousands of employees , and revenue assurance responsibility that affects many systems and departments. The average time for a human-based team identify fraudulent activity can take many hours, which gives plenty of time for fraudsters to make numerous calls using multiple devices, over many customers, and proceed to the next call before the company is even aware the fraud is taking place.
Fraud prevention doesn't have to be performed by hand. Implementing a fraud protection solution that can automatically block calls that are in progress, recognizes patterns and adjusts to ensure that fraud can be detected in seconds and actively reduces damages.
Goal posts that are constantly moving
The methods of fraud are evolving. The practice of pickingpocketing, in which many small calls that are hard to detect as fraudulent are made over the course of time, is more frequent than ever before. Additionally, there's an increase of instances where a combination of technology is used for example, when users make a call in response to a fake number via SMS or email and the high-cost nature of the call is hidden by their phone.
The methods used don't even need to be sophisticated. There are numerous instances in which calls are made from rooms in hotels and the magnitude of the harm is only revealed when the bill is paid when the check is checked out, which can be well after the agreed period for clawbacks by the carrier.
Working with a company that not only has solutions that make use of machine learning to learn and adapt, but who has a solid understanding of how attack vectors change, puts service providers in a position of knowledge and trust.
Wide product portfolios
Carriers generally use a wide variety of technologies to provide communication to companies. However the search for a solution that can adequately ensure that all of them are protected is a major issue. The ability to provide the same assurances to end customers as well as the channel regardless of the type of product used, is important.
Fraud protection strategies should be able to work across multiple networks to prevent fraud.
Customer mobility, churn and the liability
Long-term contracts aren't as popular today than they used to be in the past. The changing dynamic of competitiveness, the ease with which data are transferred as well as the speed at that cloud-based systems can be deployed (in contrast to the complexity of on-premise systems) are just a few reasons for this change. It's much simpler for customers to switch to a new provider which is one reason why customer experience is gaining the importance it deserves. Fraud could cause disruption to relationships and result in a bad customer experience. However, unlike traditional PBX environments, cloud UC service providers are often responsible for paying the bill.
Effectively preventing fraud is more than detection; solutions should actively kill fraud within seconds , thereby reducing the chance of disruption to customers and churn.
Visibility and collaboration within the channel
The companies that sell their products through channel partners typically don't own the final customer, nor usually don't even know who the final customer is. This makes it particularly difficult to manage and prevent fraud on behalf of resellers and their customers. Service providers often depend on resellers of their customers for credit limits inputs (if they have any in the first place) and leave their revenue assurance to their partners.
Implementing a fraud prevention solution that incorporates established credit limits, as well as provides visibility of results and alerts to both resellers and their customers results in shared responsibility and collaboration that is supported by real-time data and intelligence.
Blacklisting is ineffective
IP blacklisting is an additional aspect of the landscape of fraud. It wasn't very effective in the past, and IPv6 makes existing lists meaningless. The criminals can use new IP ranges to stay out of being blacklisted and it will be easier for them to do so with the help of billions of IPs.
Automated systems which can identify fraudsters rapidly from multiple IP ranges and stop them in their tracks are able to stop them.
Internet of Things
IoT is another phenomenon, when more devices join networks, there could be many ways to gain access to the network. This provides hackers with many more opportunities to attack and greater opportunity, whilst making service providers trust their customers and partners to ensure good practices in security.
Fraud protection is a complex sector for service providers. With so many variables that are beyond their control, it's vital that they implement measures to control traffic. Tollring's award winning anti-fraud product, iCS Protect provides a full solution to combat fraud. It delivers peace of mind, increased profit, and lower turnover for tier-1 service providers around the world.
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Ultraviolet -- I don't think so. I think they shut that shit down after 1.16, maybe even earlier
Symmetry -- NudeRaider