Telecom Carriers are at Risk for Fraud When They Offer Business Services to Enterprise Customers

Jan. 25, 2011 - PRLog -- EFFORT OF THE POCONOS, PENNSYLVANIA –The use of sophisticated PBX systems by a growing number of organizations has turned out to be a lucrative money-making machine for the fraudsters. This puts at risk most competitive carriers who sell services to small and medium businesses with a PBX.

Too many carriers fail to appreciate this fraud threat as they bank on their credit screening process and the wholesale carrier to monitor their traffic. “Carriers assume that fraudsters are playing from the same deck of cards they used five years ago.  These days the biggest fraud risk factor is not casual dialing, calling cards, or poor credit screening - it’s simply selling telecom services to business” says David West the executive vice president of Equinox Information Systems, a firm that provides custom fraud and revenue assurance software for the telecom industry.

Today, according to West, even the most basic PBX systems offer a wide range of capabilities which also brings with it the opportunity for a variety of fraud and unwanted intrusions to the PBX. A typical small business that owns a PBX is caught completely off-guard.   Here are some highlights from the interview.

•   Corporate customers are simply not worried about the security of their PBX device or they have no idea how much financial exposure it creates.  This makes the service provider even more vulnerable as their customers, who are clearly responsible for the fraud traffic, may in the end not be able to foot the hefty fraud bill thus diminishing the chances of recovering their revenue.

•   The operators’ efforts to regularly monitor unusual usage may also be insufficient as the hackers won’t typically strike during business hours.

•   Real time detection of fraud and alerts to the administrators is crucial today and the latest fraud management solutions can notify its users proactively, round the clock to minimize the damage.

West adds, “It’s never been a better time to monitor your network for fraud activity - and it makes sense even if you have a closed network and customers that you’ve screened for their creditworthiness.”

The complete article is available on the Revenue Assurance website at:  http://raround.com/business_fraud.asp

About Technology Research Institute
Founded in 1994, Technology Research Institute (TRI) is a market research and consulting firm that specializes in the areas of telecom revenue assurance and OSS/BSS software and services. For further information, visit http://www.technology-research.com or Tel: +1 570-620-2320.

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