Despite the rapid growth of digital communication channels, many businesses and enterprises continue to rely on the telephone for high-value communications with customers, prospects, and employees. At the same time, businesses have prioritized security investments for data networks and computer systems over enterprise voice networks. This has created a significant security vulnerability that opens the door to a wide range of call fraud. To protect their people, reputation, and bottom line, businesses must adopt robust strategies for call fraud defense that combines leading technologies, security training, and best practices.
What is Call Fraud
Call fraud, also known as phone fraud or telecom fraud, refers to malicious activities conducted over the telephone to deceive employees or cause them to take actions that allow fraudsters to steal money, data, or identities. These schemes often use social engineering, psychological manipulation, and a lack of strong security habits when it comes to accepting phone calls.
The Many Varieties of Call Fraud
Call fraud comes in many forms, each exploiting different vulnerabilities in the voice networks and security protocols of businesses and contact centers.
Toll Fraud Also known as toll-free traffic pumping, access stimulation, or call pumping, toll fraud is a sophisticated form of call fraud where 1-800 numbers are flooded with bogus calls. While these calls are free to the caller, they generate fees for the business. Fraudsters are able to collect a portion of these fees by routing the calls through high-cost local telecom carriers with whom they have created a business relationship that entitles the fraudsters to a portion of the revenue.
Vishing Voice phishing (vishing) is a form of call fraud that attempts to dupe victims into giving up sensitive personal information over the phone. Attackers commonly create scenarios that exploit a victim’s fear or greed to get them to reveal information like credit card numbers, login credentials, or financial account details, or to take actions like authorizing a transfer of funds. Scammers typically use social engineering techniques that involve gaining personal information about the victim, or they use automated voice simulation technology to impersonate a trusted individual. Caller ID spoofing — where the incoming phone call displays the name and phone number of a trusted contact — may also play a role in s.
One-Ring Call Scams Also known as Wangiri, these schemes involve a phone call to a victim that terminates after one ring. When unsuspecting employees call the number back to see what the original call was about, the business is charged high international rates or connection fees, which the fraudsters receive a portion of. Scammers deploy a variety of tricks to increase the duration of the call, increasing the fee and their profits.
Tech Support Scams In this form of call fraud, scammers pose as members of the IT department, an internet service provider, or a well-known software or hardware vendor. Unsuspecting employees are duped into revealing login credentials, downloading malware, or giving control of their computers to the scammers.
Robocalls Robocalls are calls that are dialed automatically and when connected, may play a recorded message or connect the recipients to a live agent. While robocalls are not necessarily illegal, over 60% of these nuisance calls involve scams and call fraud.
Call Fraud Defense Strategies
To protect their employees, their data, and their bottom line, organizations must adopt a multi-layered approach to call fraud defense.
Call Authentication Authentication protocols like STIR/SHAKEN (Secure Telephone Identity Revisited/Signature-based Handling of Asserted Information Using toKENs) can help to mitigate call fraud by making it harder for fraudsters to spoof calling numbers. To reduce the risk of scams, call authentication technologies can flag or block calls that fail verification.
Call Encryption Encryption ensures that voice communications remain secure by preventing eavesdropping and tampering. This is especially important for VoIP systems that are more susceptible to interception.
AI-Powered Fraud Detection Machine learning technologies can analyze call traffic in real time to identify anomalies such as unusual call patterns or spikes in activity that may suggest potentially fraudulent calls.
Call Filtering Businesses may deploy technologies like a call firewall that filters all telephony activity, flagging or blocking potentially suspicious calls. These systems rely on databases of suspicious numbers and adaptive algorithms to stay updated.
Call Monitoring Tools These technologies track call patterns and generate alerts for suspicious activity such as a sudden surge in international calls or unusual traffic from specific regions.
Employee Training Businesses can reduce call fraud by adding fraud recognition training to their employee security awareness programs. By educating employees on the signs of common call fraud — including urgent demands, threats, or requests for sensitive information — businesses can ensure that employees remain vigilant against a variety of telephony threats.
Incident Response Plans Because it’s nearly impossible to prevent every instance of call fraud, businesses must have clear incident response plans in place to limit the spread of fraudulent activity once it’s detected. Plans should include protocols for notifying stakeholders such as employees, customers, and regulators and for analyzing incidents to identify weaknesses in existing defenses and implementing improvements to prevent future occurrences.
The Impact of Inadequate Call Fraud Defense
When businesses fail to adopt robust call fraud defense mechanisms, the consequences can be significant and far-reaching. The impact often extends beyond immediate losses, creating long-term challenges and risks.
Financial Losses
Unauthorized charges resulting from toll fraud or fraudulent transactions can lead to severe financial losses for businesses. For example, employees tricked into approving fraudulent transactions or sharing financial information can cause direct monetary damage. Such losses can be especially devastating for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), which may not have the financial reserves to absorb unexpected expenses.
Operational Disruptions
Call fraud can disrupt business operations by compromising phone systems or diverting resources to address fraud-related incidents. For instance, fraudsters may overload a company’s phone network with high call volumes, rendering it unavailable for legitimate customer interactions. Investigating and mitigating fraudulent activity can consume valuable time and resources, pulling employees away from core tasks and projects.
Reputation Damage
A single fraud incident can significantly harm a business’ reputation, especially if it results in a breach of trust with customers or partners. When sensitive customer data is leaked or misused due to call fraud, it erodes confidence in the company’s ability to protect information. The loss of customer trust can result in reduced sales, increased churn, and difficulty acquiring new clients.
Legal and Compliance Risks
Call fraud can expose businesses to significant legal and compliance risks, particularly when it involves data breaches or violations of telecom regulations. For example, mishandling customer information due to fraudulent schemes may result in fines under data protection laws like GDPR or CCPA. Businesses in regulated industries may face additional scrutiny from oversight bodies, leading to audits, investigations, or penalties.
Data Breaches
Fraudsters often use call fraud as a way to gain access to sensitive business or customer data, resulting in data breaches with long-lasting repercussions. Compromised data can include financial records, proprietary business information, or personal details of employees and clients. These breaches not only create immediate risks, like identity theft or financial fraud, but also expose the business to legal liabilities and reputational harm.
SecureLogix: Leading Solutions for Call Trust, Security, and Authentication
SecureLogix offers a unified solution for security, authentication, and trust solutions for enterprise voice networks. By preventing call fraud, enhancing call trust, and increasing call security, we lower contact center costs and improve call answer rates while protecting you and your customers from telephony-based attacks.
Our cloud-based platform provides several call fraud defense solutions.
Call Defense™ System
SecureLogix Call Defense™ System offers superior call fraud defense in a technology that sits at the edge of your voice network to deliver industry-leading protection for voice channels and business calls. By filtering good voice traffic from bad, the Call Defense™ System reduces unwanted calls and keeps voice networks safe and secure from call fraud, attacks, and business disruption.
Call Defense™ System serves as a call firewall, providing enterprise-wide visibility and enforcing security policies across the voice network. A Call Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) detects call patterns attacks and identifies anomalies while enforcing call volume threshold and traffic velocity limits. Scheduled and ad hoc reports provide instant insight into voice network usage, CDR analytics, and call fraud forensics.
Call Secure™ Managed Service
For organizations that prefer to outsource call fraud defense, SecureLogix® Call Secure™ Managed Service combines the award-winning call protection technology of Call Defense™ System with the expertise of the most experienced call security experts in the industry. This solution is vendor and protocol agnostic — it supports all network architectures and any mix of TDM and SIP traffic. With proactive monitoring of new attacks and malicious calls, Call Secure™ Managed Service enhances call fraud defenses while increasing call visibility across the enterprise.
Orchestra One™ Call Authentication Service
The Orchestra One™ call authentication service combats call fraud by identifying trusted callers before they reach your employees and contact center agents. By dynamically orchestrating multiple zero-cost and low-cost metadata services to authenticate each call at the lowest possible price, Orchestra One™ makes call authentication far more efficient, affordable, and scalable.
Key Benefits
Reduced Call Duration Orchestra One™ reduces call handling time by as much as 30 seconds per call thanks to automated call verification.
Improved CX Increase customer satisfaction by reducing the number of frustrating security questions that are typical for knowledge-based authentication.
Reduce Authentication Costs Orchestra One™ analyzes and orchestrates thousands of call details along with real-time carrier network metadata to provide a high value verification/authentication score for each call at the lowest possible price.
FAQ
Q: What is call fraud?
Call fraud refers to deceptive practices carried out over telephone systems to steal data, commit financial crimes, or disrupt operations. Fraudsters use tactics like spoofing, phishing, toll fraud, and account takeovers to exploit businesses and their customers. These schemes target vulnerabilities in communication systems, resulting in financial losses, reputational damage, and compromised customer trust.
Q: What is the most effective form of call fraud defense?
The most effective call fraud defense is a multi-layered approach that combines advanced technologies, employee training, and proactive monitoring. Tools like STIR/SHAKEN for caller ID authentication, AI-powered analytics, voice biometrics, and real-time monitoring work together to detect and block fraudulent activity. Additionally, educating employees and customers about fraud tactics strengthens defense by minimizing human vulnerabilities.
Q: What is STIR/SHAKEN?
STIR/SHAKEN is a call authentication framework designed to combat caller ID spoofing by verifying the legitimacy of call origins. STIR (Secure Telephony Identity Revisited) digitally signs calls to confirm their authenticity, while SHAKEN (Secure Handling of Asserted information using toKENs) ensures these standards are implemented across telecom networks. This system helps businesses and individuals identify trustworthy calls, reducing the risk of falling victim to spoofing-based scams.
Q: How do AI and machine learning improve call fraud defense?
AI and machine learning enhance call fraud defense by analyzing vast amounts of call data to identify patterns and anomalies indicative of fraud. These technologies adapt and learn over time, improving their ability to detect emerging threats and suspicious behavior. By providing real-time insights and automating threat detection, AI enables faster responses to fraud attempts, reducing the risk of harm.