It seems like every so often incidences of VoIP fraud spike. Whether it's an effect of the weak global economy, or some other factor, Q3 of 2009 is turning out to be one of those periods.
Don't get me wrong, VoIP fraud is always an issue to be contended with - partly because lax security on the part of systems administrators makes it easy to achieve, and partly because the nature of the Internet opens service providers up to anybody with a desire to test their defenses. However, over the the past few weeks, I have been hearing reports of wholesale VoIP fraud that are particularly appalling.
One that is currently making the rounds is the Zambia scam. Apparently one or more large carriers have been allowing wholesale customers to make calls to any destination in the world if an e.164 formatted number is prefixed with 260 (the country code for Zambia). For example, a carrier that is susceptible to this hack would route a call dialed as 26005352632040 to Cuba (country code 53). Since that dialstring would normally be routed and billed as if it were terminating to Zambia (where the going rate for a wholesale call is under $0.03) instead of to Cuba (where the going rate is over $0.50), a provider in the chain is bound to lose out.
It is not clear whether these calls are actually re-originated through Zambia through a local PTT such as Zamtel, or are the result of a botched route entry in a shared underlying carrier further up the line. The anecdotal reports I have heard seem to indicate that the former is the case. In either event, the problem is difficult to detect because the routing will appear to be legitimate for all service providers that handle the call prior to the error. As a result, any service provider that notices a spike in traffic to Zambia would be well served to investigate more closely.
For a bit of shameless self-promotion, be sure to try grnVoIP if you are in need of prepaid wholesale VoIP termination. With sophisticated anti-fraud technology from Solegy, grnVoIP is able to maintain low rate VoIP termination by staying one step ahead of the bad guys.
Don't get me wrong, VoIP fraud is always an issue to be contended with - partly because lax security on the part of systems administrators makes it easy to achieve, and partly because the nature of the Internet opens service providers up to anybody with a desire to test their defenses. However, over the the past few weeks, I have been hearing reports of wholesale VoIP fraud that are particularly appalling.
One that is currently making the rounds is the Zambia scam. Apparently one or more large carriers have been allowing wholesale customers to make calls to any destination in the world if an e.164 formatted number is prefixed with 260 (the country code for Zambia). For example, a carrier that is susceptible to this hack would route a call dialed as 26005352632040 to Cuba (country code 53). Since that dialstring would normally be routed and billed as if it were terminating to Zambia (where the going rate for a wholesale call is under $0.03) instead of to Cuba (where the going rate is over $0.50), a provider in the chain is bound to lose out.
It is not clear whether these calls are actually re-originated through Zambia through a local PTT such as Zamtel, or are the result of a botched route entry in a shared underlying carrier further up the line. The anecdotal reports I have heard seem to indicate that the former is the case. In either event, the problem is difficult to detect because the routing will appear to be legitimate for all service providers that handle the call prior to the error. As a result, any service provider that notices a spike in traffic to Zambia would be well served to investigate more closely.
For a bit of shameless self-promotion, be sure to try grnVoIP if you are in need of prepaid wholesale VoIP termination. With sophisticated anti-fraud technology from Solegy, grnVoIP is able to maintain low rate VoIP termination by staying one step ahead of the bad guys.
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