Healthcare Corporation Staves Off Payday Loan Scam
A nation-wide healthcare corporation finds dozens of its member hospitals crippled by TDoS attacks, with vital voices services held hostage to ransom demands from highly sophisticated attackers. The stakes were critical when SecureLogix stepped in to help the hospital network to implement the Call Secure™ managed service, and stop the payday loan scam.
Use Case
Industry
Context
Solution
“The situation becomes very challenging very quickly when the phones stop working in a hospital… families unable to reach patients, nurses unable to reach doctors… SecureLogix helped us save lives by getting the phone system back on line and putting the defenses in place we needed to defeat future attacks.”
Challenge
A nation-wide healthcare corporation was receiving urgent, weekly reports of Telephony Denial of Service (TDoS) attacks from many of its more than 250 member hospitals across the U.S. Each attack was resulting in the loss of vital voice services (no phone calls in or out) inside emergency rooms, intensive care units, and other critical care facilities. The attacks were not only dangerous disruptions of emergency and patient care operations, but were also exposing hospitals and physicians to significant insurance liability risks.
Solution
The source of the crime was an international fraud and extortion operation executing what became known as the “Payday Loan Scam Attack,” resulting in TDoS attacks against hospitals. Deployment of the Call Secure™ managed service gave member hospitals real-time visibility and control over all inbound and outbound voice traffic. The solution provided real-time alerts to identify patterns of suspected fraud and TDoS calls, and blocked calls from the attackers before they impacted hospital operations and patient services.
Result
Following deployment of the SecureLogix solution, the original attackers launched additional TDoS attacks against many of the target hospitals, including attacks from new sets of source phone numbers. These attacks were quickly identified and blocked. After several unsuccessful attempts, the attackers discontinued their attacks. With an ability to now see and block malicious and threatening calls in real-time, hospitals were able to prevent TDoS attack calls and block further operational disruption, loss of phone services, and insurance risk exposure.
managed service
Reduce costs and secure your business voice network and contact centers from attack, disruption, fraud and abuse.
Learn More
call authentication service