Toll fraud, phreaking or phone hacking can affect any organisation, regardless of its size, sector, location or telephone provider. It occurs when hackers break into your company’s phone system without permission and make unauthorised calls from your account. Despite media attempts to raise awareness of this crime, each year hundreds of British businesses and authorities falls victims to telephone hacking.
In recent years, we have witnessed a significant increase in business telecoms fraud. The UK is the third most targeted country in the world for toll fraud; it is estimated to be costing companies over £1 billion every year.
If you do not have a toll fraud management service already in place, it is crucial that you start looking for solutions that will protect your telephone system. We provide a wide range of toll fraud management service that will protect you from fraudulent activity from endpoints that have fallen victim to hacking or excessive unauthorised call spends.
However, the following simple measures will help to minimise your chances of being hacked:
Bar premium and international calls
The threat to businesses comes from international fraudsters who hack into telephone systems and then either sell phone lines or make calls to premium rate or overseas numbers. Restrict premium and international calls and where necessary allow calls to those locations that you need to call.
Disable after office hours calls
Toll fraud is most likely to occur during out of working hours such as evening, weekends and holidays, and it can go unnoticed for months. Disable all after office hours calls and ensure that fraudsters are not able to abuse your telephone system when you are not aware.
Passwords
Change system and server passwords on a regular basis. Remember to also change user passwords when your employees leave. Use a variety of upper case, lower case and numeric values when creating passwords.
Voicemail PIN numbers
Ensure voicemail PIN numbers are not default and easy to break e.g. 0000 and 1234.
Restrict external call transfers
Restrict the transferring of all external calls and configure your system to allow calls to be redirected only to known numbers.
Protect DISA numbers
Share your Direct Inward System Access (DISA) number only with staff that really need to know it. Do not disclose numbers that can give access to your DISA.
Telephone bills
Always review your telephone bills and analyse your call patterns. Do not turn a blind eye to any billing anomalies; if you spot anything unusual take steps to investigate it.
How we can help?
If you suspect that your phone system has been breached, or your existing provider does not offer toll fraud management service contact Opus Telecoms on 020 8545 8545 or send an email and we will get back to you.
