Merging Criminal and Technical Intelligence in Telecom Fraud, Security and Revenue Assurance

Telecom advances are driving the need for a broader revenue risk intelligence. Telecoms must excel in technical areas: traffic usage, IP intrusion, and physical security, then pair that knowledge with the real-life lessons of fighting criminals.
 
 
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July 3, 2012 - PRLog -- Revenue risk threats are exploding in the telecom industry, in part because today’s communications world is a candy store for the fraudster — so many mouth-watering opportunities to steal a fortune: errant SIM cards, on-line banking accounts, mobile banking, and hacking into a VPN when an employee logs on at Starbucks.

The new threat gateways are so numerous that we can no longer afford to develop technical solutions for every threat.  And understanding where to focus a telco’s fraud and security energies and resources is no easy task.

So making the right choices requires a broader intelligence: an understanding of fraud and security infrastructure such as traffic usage data, IP intrusion appliances, and physical barriers, but also real-life experience in fighting criminals and devising strategies to anticipate their next moves.

Mark Johnson, chairman of The Risk Management Group (TRMG), is one of the leading experts in telecom fraud and security management.  In this exclusive interview with Black Swan Journal Mark shows how the various revenue risk domains intersect, and what telecoms need to do to protect themselves.

The story is entitled: Converging Criminal and Technical Intelligence: Secret to Combating the Explosion in Telecom Fraud and Security Threats http://bswan.org/criminal_and_technical.asp .

Highlights of Mark Johnson's insights follow

On the Merger of Intelligence and Analytics

"Intelligence activity is key to crime fighting of all types.  And intelligence is really about collecting data and looking for patterns.  It could be the pattern of enemy patrolling, or the pattern of vessel movement, or the pattern of containerized cargo movement, or the pattern of phone calls, or the pattern of data packages coming in through the firewalls.  The basic concepts are essentially the same."

Where Assurance Software Solutions are Behind

"Revenue assurance and fraud vendors rarely pay any attention to cyber security, and I don‘t think they fully recognize just how far convergence is going to push things -- how hard it’s going to be to make a distinction between different types of security incident.  We need to get beyond the silos and look at the total picture."

Revenue Risks and Telecom Business Models

"It's important to look at how risks are going to map onto a client’s business model.  So, for example, if the business model is evolving towards more data and less voice traffic, then controlling monthly or fixed payments for data services, or looking at new charging options in the pipeline, will become more important than examining current transaction-based charging accuracy.  A changing business model implies that your risks are going to take on a different form very soon."

On the Changing Nature of Security

"People have traditionally viewed security as a series of layers like an onion.  And you can imagine you’ve got your assets in the center, and then around that you have many concentric rings of defense.   But now there’s a shift where we have the Cloud or Web 2.0, social media, outsourcing and so forth, which means the assets are no longer always internal — many of the key ones are external.  On the other hand the threats themselves are not solely external: many of them are internal which could be as simple as an employee leaking something through Twitter -- or malicious activity."

About Black Swan Telecom Journal

The Black Swan Telecom Journal http://bswan.org is an on-line zine dedicated to the professionals and executives who protect and grow a robust communications business.   The Journal covers a broad range of strategic issues, operator case studies, consultant perspective, and solution vendor advice, particularly in the fields of revenue assurance, fraud assurance, cost/margin management and security.
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