Businesses across the UK are falling victim to telephone fraud and PBX hacking with each Toll Fraud attack costing businesses on average £10,000.
This is a multi-billion dollar industry with monetary damages more than double that of Credit Card Fraud.
It has fast become a global, industry-wide problem that has caused extensive financial loss to companies totalling over a £1bn a year worth of losses to businesses.
So what is PABX Fraud / Toll Fraud?
Similar to computer hacking, Toll Fraud is the illegal and unauthorised use of your telephone equipment, telephone lines and services in order to make expensive and numerous long-distance calls that are charged to YOU.
Also known as phreaking or phone hacking it poses a serious risk to businesses of any size with an estimated 85% of businesses considered to be vulnerable.
A single attack can typically cost a business thousands and as a worst-case scenario result in bankruptcy.
VoIP is now the most prevalent form of voice communications and as the acronym suggests, it is “Voice OVER IP”, meaning a phone service over the Internet.
With this in mind, network security professionals must add another service to their list of networked services to protect. Requiring them to implement policies and procedures that mitigate breaches and theft of service. Unfortunately Toll Fraud is typically a security risk many IT professionals learn about after it is too late.
What can I do to protect my Phone System?
Here at Tech IP we have tools implemented in our billing platform which allows you to keep track of all the calls your business makes.
We can arrange with you to set a specific call cost threshold for your business so that if you exceed your stated amount it will flag up as suspicious activity on your account.
For example, you may decide that your business makes on average of about £50 of calls per day so we would set you a threshold for this amount and if you then exceed this amount it will flag up an alert and you will be informed by us immediately and be able to put a stop to any fraudulent activity.
A single attack can typically cost a business thousands and as a worst-case scenario result in bankruptcy.
Be alert and take steps now to protect your business.
If you’re worried about telephone fraud or want to find out more about how you can protect your business telephone systems call Tech IP today 0800 50 533 50.
