Techmesh’s techbytes: Cost to UK businesses of phone hacking is ‘phreaking’ sky-high
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TECHMESH welcomes the regional Telecoms company Commsprovider to techbytes. Techbytes is the monthly column specifically for IT & Telecoms leaders and professionals in Yorkshire and the Humber. Recent phone hacking scandals in the news has highlighted how encompassing the problem of hacking has become. This includes criminal activity such as hacking business telephone systems to initiate outbound calls to premium numbers. Known as ‘Phone Phreaking’, it is estimated to be costing UK businesses over £1b per year. The UK is now in the top five “phreaking hotspots” in the world, making long distance telecom fraud a serious, although dangerously underestimated problem for businesses large and small. According to the latest research from The Communication Fraud Control Association (www.cfca.org) the UK has joined Cuba, the Philippines, Lichtenstein and India where the biggest outbreaks are concentrated – with problems continuing to escalate. Examples of UK victims’ include a £300,000 ‘hit’ and a worldwide gang was discovered recently who had made some £30M from these activities. These sorts of headlines may make people think – “this doesn’t apply to me” – think again. Its small to medium sized business that are targeted the most as they are most vulnerable. Roger Ansin, MD of Callista – provider of hacking firewall software – interviewed by the BBC says “Companies have to start to secure their phone systems from this; otherwise they could get hit with very large bills. The issue for them is that they are obliged to pay it, because to the carrier the calls came from their phone system. Therefore they are responsible for that bill” The average cost to a victim of a UK phreaking attack is currently estimated at £10,000. The threat to businesses comes from highly organised criminal gangs with state-of-the-art equipment which they use to hook chains of compromised PBXs (Private branch exchanges, as used in most commercial settings large and small) to form their own networks. Once the hackers have gained access to a system it becomes open to abuse time after time until the fraud is detected, by which time the damage has been done and the victims have no option other than to pay for the often £10,000s worth of stolen calling hours to premium rate numbers. Most businesses spend significant resources protecting and securing their networks and PCs from external virus, hacker and spy attacks but leave their PABX network completely unsecured and defenceless – a bit like locking the front door then leaving the back door and all the windows in the building wide open. Phreakers are constantly trawling for unsecured phone systems, modems and voicemail boxes and once they breach your phone system, you will pay for the illegal calls they make. Passwords on voicemail and PBX dial up ports can be cracked in milliseconds by professional phreakers and software to do this is feely available on the internet. Commsprovider, a regional Telecoms company with offices in Halifax has seen a rise in incidents during the last year. Comments Mike Bower – ‘Most businesses do not publicise becoming victims as who would advertise that their security can be breached? It is a real problem and one to consider seriously. A basic firewall can be deployed in front of your telephone system for just hundreds of pounds – we are happy to advise the business community about these issues and have full details available on our website’. Contact Commsprovider Commsprovider Contact techmesh For further information about techmesh please contact Marian Smith on 0113 220 6375, email marian.smith@techmesh.org or visit our website www.techmesh.org More articles in
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