Ever-growing complexity of telecom fraud and its ripple effect

New market brief provides tips to stay one step ahead of the fraudsters

BRIDGEWATER, NJ – May 16, 2019 - The misuse and fraudulent abuse of phone networks is a growing worldwide problem that continues to trouble regulators, hit service provider revenues, impact customer service and annoy businesses and consumers alike.

The Communications Fraud Control Association (CFCA) reports that phone companies suffered a collective loss to fraudulent activity just shy of $30 billion. On top of that, international subscription revenue fraud (IRSF) has grown six-fold in the last five years. Not surprisingly, it is becoming increasingly difficult for fraud managers to stay on top of the latest fraud techniques and prevent significant losses to their bottom line.

A new market brief from industry leading telecommunications partner, iconectiv, highlights proactive measures service providers can use to block unwanted calls and reduce network fraud, including revenue share, subscription, PBX hacking and Wangiri fraud. The brief outlines best practices for using numbering intelligence to augment existing fraud management systems to outsmart the fraudsters.

“Stopping and preventing fraud remains a moving target, and fraud managers must be mindful and vigilant,” said Richard Jacowleff, CEO and President, iconectiv. “With fraudsters becoming increasingly sophisticated, security and fraud strategies need to stay several strides ahead of the latest techniques in order to efficiently and effectively block vulnerabilities before attacks happen.”

Adding to the complexity, service providers are under pressure to deliver new and innovative services to retain customers and differentiate themselves from competition. While much of the attention is on creating and funding these innovations, what is often overlooked is the fraud and security implications they pose. Each technology and service added means new possibilities for fraudsters to infiltrate a network and new techniques for fraud managers to implement to prevent it from happening. 

The iconectiv market brief highlights best practices and industry solutions, inspired by TruNumber Protect, which provides authoritative numbering data to enhance existing service provider systems. This process targets suspect incoming calls and is supported by up-to-the minute awareness of attacks and patterns of behavior. Adding TruNumber Protect can also give you the data needed to block whole number ranges and spot patterns that can signify large-scale fraudulent activity.

Learn how to outsmart the fraudsters to safeguard your revenue in iconectiv’s market brief. Copies can be downloaded here.