Call fraud has emerged as a highly potent threat that may fly under the radar of security teams that are highly focused on cyber threats to computer networks and cloud infrastructure. Yet, since the devastation caused by call fraud may equal the impact of a cyberattack, savvy businesses and contact centers are placing a high priority on investments in call fraud detection. Superior detection technology combines multiple levels of security to prevent suspicious calls from reaching the organization and to authenticate the identity of inbound callers. By adopting effective call fraud detection solutions, businesses can avoid financial losses, damage to reputation, and the operational disruption associated with major security incidents.

What Is Call Fraud

Call fraud refers to malicious activities carried out via phone calls designed to deceive individuals or businesses. Fraudsters frequently use tactics like impersonation and spoofing to manipulate communications with employees or contact center agents. Typically, the goal of call fraud is to steal money, extract data, or gain access to confidential resources of a business and/or its customers.

Common Types of Call Fraud

Vishing

Vishing, or voice phishing, involves fraudsters using phone calls to deceive individuals into sharing sensitive information such as passwords, financial details, or Social Security numbers. They often impersonate trusted entities like banks, government agencies, or tech support, using social engineering tactics to exploit fear or urgency.

Toll Fraud and Traffic Pumping

Toll fraud involves unauthorized use of a business's phone systems to make expensive calls to premium-rate numbers, leading to inflated bills. Traffic pumping, a variation, occurs when fraudsters generate high call volumes to rural or premium-rate exchanges, profiting from termination fees paid by telecom providers.

Caller ID Spoofing

Caller ID spoofing is the manipulation of caller ID information to make a call appear to originate from a trusted source, such as a bank or government agency. This tactic is used to gain the recipient’s trust, often leading the victim to disclose sensitive information or fraudulent transactions.

Robocall Scams

Robocall scams use automated calls to deliver pre-recorded messages that trick recipients into taking actions like providing personal information or making payments. These scams often involve impersonations of legitimate entities and can target businesses with fake opportunities, fraudulent offers, or warnings of legal actions.

One-Ring Fraud

In one-ring fraud (or Wangiri fraud), fraudsters leave a missed call from a premium-rate or international number, enticing the recipient to call back. When the call is returned, the victim incurs high charges, with a portion of the revenue going to the scammer.

Account Takeover

Account takeover occurs when fraudsters use stolen credentials or social engineering tactics to impersonate legitimate users and gain access to business accounts. Once inside, they may initiate unauthorized transactions, access sensitive data, or disrupt operations.

Tech-Support Scams

Tech-support scams involve fraudsters posing as legitimate IT support providers, claiming a need to fix non-existent issues with a business’s systems. They often trick victims into granting remote access to systems, installing malware, or paying for fake services.

IRS Scams

IRS scams target businesses by impersonating tax authorities, claiming the business owes back taxes or faces legal consequences. Fraudsters use threats of fines, lawsuits, or asset seizures to pressure victims into making immediate payments or disclosing financial information.

Call Fraud in the Contact Center

Contact centers are ripe for fraudulent attacks because of the high volume of calls processed each day and the pressure under which contact center agents often work. Call fraud in the contact center may take a variety of forms.

  • Account Takeover: By getting a contact center agent to change an email address or reset a customer portal password, criminals can take control of a customer account to steal money or make purchases.

  • Identity Theft: Many fraudsters obtain personal information found or purchased on the dark web after a data breach. By sharing some of this sensitive information with a contact center agent, fraudsters may be able to gain enough additional details to open new accounts and initiate transactions under a stolen identity.

  • Card Not Present Scams: Using credit card numbers from a stolen card or from data exposed on the dark web, scammers may call a contact center to initiate a credit card transaction without needing to physically present a card.

  • Free Replacement Scams: Posing as legitimate customers who have purchased goods, criminals claim to have an issue with their purchase and request that a replacement be sent to a new address.

  • Social Engineering Scams: Scammers may pose as authority figures such as supervisors or company executives and pressure contact center agents into bypassing established security protocols and divulging sensitive information.

The Consequences of Call Fraud

Financial Strain

Fraudulent activities can lead to significant financial losses for businesses through unauthorized transactions, inflated phone bills from toll fraud, or loss of funds transferred to scammers. In addition to these direct costs, businesses may incur expenses to investigate and mitigate the fraud, such as hiring cybersecurity experts or implementing advanced fraud detection solutions. Regulatory fines may also arise from non-compliance with data protection and anti-fraud regulations, further compounding financial strain.

Damage to Business Reputation

When businesses are targeted by call fraud, it can erode customer trust and confidence in the organization’s ability to protect their data and interests. Customers may perceive the business as negligent, especially if the fraud results in financial or personal harm. This negative perception can lead to diminished customer retention, reduced brand loyalty, and a tarnished reputation that may take years to rebuild.

Disruption to Operations and Productivity

Fraudulent calls often consume valuable time and resources in businesses and contact centers, overwhelming employees and agents and reducing their ability to handle legitimate customer inquiries efficiently. High volumes of fraudulent calls can clog phone lines, delaying service for real customers and straining staffing resources. Additionally, the need to investigate and respond to fraud incidents diverts attention and energy from core business operations, impacting productivity.

Legal and Regulatory Penalties

Businesses that fail to implement adequate measures to detect and prevent call fraud risk non-compliance with regulations such as the TRACED Act, GDPR, or CCPA. Regulatory bodies may impose substantial fines, sanctions, or other penalties for breaches of these rules. In addition to financial repercussions, non-compliance can lead to legal disputes and increased scrutiny from regulators, further harming the organization’s standing and resources.

Call Fraud Detection Solutions

Preventing call fraud requires a multi-layered approach to protecting voice networks. Here are some of the most common and most effective call fraud defense and detection technologies.

Multifactor Authentication

Multifactor authentication (MFA) strengthens call fraud detection by requiring users to verify their identity through multiple means, such as a password, a one-time PIN, or biometric verification. By adding extra steps to the authentication process, MFA makes it significantly harder for fraudsters to gain unauthorized access to accounts, even if they possess some of the victim’s credentials. This method is particularly effective in preventing account takeover and unauthorized transactions during call interactions.

Training and Awareness

Training employees and raising awareness about call fraud equips them with the knowledge to identify and respond to fraudulent attempts effectively. By learning about tactics like social engineering and caller impersonation, agents can better recognize red flags and follow established protocols for escalation. Regular training ensures staff remain vigilant and consistent in their approach, reducing the risk of human error in detecting fraud.

Real-Time Monitoring & Analytics

Real-time monitoring and analytics allow businesses to analyze call patterns and behaviors as they happen, helping to identify suspicious activity immediately. Advanced analytics tools can flag anomalies, such as repeated call attempts, unusual call durations, or spikes in international traffic, which are often signs of fraud. By acting on these insights quickly, organizations can prevent fraudulent activities before they escalate.

Call Filtering

Call filtering uses predefined rules and algorithms to block or flag calls from suspicious or known fraudulent numbers. These systems often rely on updated databases of malicious phone numbers and can be configured to prioritize legitimate traffic while screening out potential threats. By reducing the volume of fraudulent calls, call filtering improves operational efficiency and reduces the strain on contact center agents.

Call Authentication

Call authentication solutions, such as STIR/SHAKEN protocols, verify the legitimacy of caller ID information to ensure it has not been spoofed or tampered with. This process assigns a digital certificate to calls, confirming their authenticity and helping businesses identify fraudulent calls before they reach customers or agents. By ensuring the integrity of caller ID data, call authentication enhances trust and prevents spoofing-based scams.

Voice Biometrics

Voice biometrics authenticate callers by analyzing unique vocal characteristics, such as pitch, tone, and speech patterns, to verify their identity. This technology is highly effective in preventing impersonation fraud, as voice prints are difficult to replicate. Voice biometrics provide a seamless and secure method of verification, enhancing both fraud detection and the customer experience.

Securelogix: Call Trust, Security, And Authentication

SecureLogix delivers a complete solution for voice network security and inbound and outbound call authentication and trust. Offering proven technology and the industry’s most skilled team of telephony experts, we protect you and your customers from call fraud and other telephone-based attacks.

Our solutions offer a multi-layered approach to call fraud detection and defense.

SecureLogix Call Defense™ System: Blocking Unwanted and Suspicious Calls

The Call Defense™ System is an 11th generation technology that sits at the edge of your voice network and filters good traffic from bad in real time to reduce unwanted calls and provide superior call fraud detection. Components of the call defense system include a voice firewall, voice intrusion prevention system (IPS), a malicious callers database (Red List), and forensic reporting. This SecureLogix technology provides real-time visibility and control of all voice calls into and out of your enterprise to enhance call fraud detection. It also offers the ability to enforce voice security policy in real time to identify and stop attacks such as phishing, TDoS, call pumping, robocalls, and more.

Call Secure™ Managed Service: A Fully Managed Call Security Solution

SecureLogix Call Secure™ Managed Service combines the industry-leading technology of the Call Defense™ System with superhero level protection and support from the most experienced call security experts in the industry. No team secures more enterprise voice networks, phone lines, and calls than the SecureLogix team. Whether you opt into our fully managed service or need help mitigating a major attack, our team is dedicated to providing service you can rely on to solve problems and challenges as they occur.

Orchestra One™ Call Authentication Service: Smart, Affordable Authentication

With SecureLogix Orchestra One™ Call Authentication Service, you can quickly verify and authenticate every inbound call with an automated, cloud-based, call authentication and spoofing detection service. By analyzing and orchestrating thousands of call details along with real-time carrier network metadata, Orchestra One™ delivers a rigorous, high-value verification/authentication score for each call. To authenticate each caller at the lowest possible price, this SecureLogix technology uses multiple zero-cost and low-cost metadata services, providing a complete call trust solution that’s not only smart and efficient but affordable as well.

FAQ

Q: What is call fraud detection

Call fraud detection involves identifying fraudulent activities in phone communications by monitoring and analyzing call patterns, caller behavior, and system vulnerabilities. Detection methods often leverage tools like real-time analytics, caller ID authentication, voice biometrics, and AI-powered algorithms to flag suspicious activity. By identifying threats early, businesses can prevent data theft, financial loss, and operational disruptions caused by fraudulent calls.

Q: What is STIR/SHAKEN

STIR/SHAKEN is a set of telecommunication protocols designed to authenticate the legitimacy of caller IDs and combat spoofing. STIR (Secure Telephony Identity Revisited) digitally signs calls to verify their origin, while SHAKEN (Secure Handling of Asserted information using toKENs) enforces these standards across telecom networks. Together, they ensure that calls display accurate caller information, helping businesses and recipients identify and trust legitimate calls.

Q: Why are businesses and contact centers susceptible to call fraud

Businesses and contact centers are attractive targets for fraud due to their access to sensitive customer data, financial information, and account management systems. The high volume of calls handled daily increases the opportunities for fraudsters to exploit system vulnerabilities or manipulate agents through social engineering. Additionally, outdated security protocols or insufficient employee training can further expose businesses to call fraud risks.

Q: What are the objectives of call fraud schemes

Call fraud schemes aim to achieve goals such as stealing sensitive information, committing financial fraud, or gaining unauthorized access to customer accounts or business systems. Fraudsters may also seek to exploit phone systems for toll fraud, generate revenue from traffic pumping, or damage an organization’s reputation.

Q: How should businesses handle a suspected call fraud incident

When a call fraud incident is suspected, businesses should immediately escalate the matter to a fraud response team or appropriate authority within the organization. Investigating the incident promptly, such as analyzing call logs and reviewing system access, helps identify the scope of the breach. Businesses should also report the incident to telecom providers and regulatory bodies, communicate transparently with affected customers, and implement enhanced security measures to prevent future occurrences.

Additional Reading