Companies hit by 400% increase in phone fraud

The first quarter of this year has seen a 400% increase in phone fraud, according to the Telecommunications Industry Group (TIG), an association that numbers Telecom and Vodafone among its members.

The numbers often cost $US15 a minute

The numbers often cost $US15 a minute, and the attacks often happen in the evening or weekends - so a business can be ripped off to the tune of thousands before it realises anything’s amiss.

Dialing for dollarsTIG chief executive Rob Spray told NBR the average company was lost $10,000 to phone system hackers. But his organisation is also aware of cases where businesses have been stung for between $20,000 and $50,000.

Traditionally, only big companies could afford their own PABX (private automatic branch exchange; or the system that connects your organisations’ phones, faxes - and these days often PCs - to a phone company’s network, and often handles features like voice mail.)

But the rise of cheaper digital or “IP” (internet protocol) PABXes over the past five years - including software PABXes like Asterix - has seen many smaller businesses install their own.

DIY blundersMany have not taken basic security precautions, and many do not have call-logging options enabled - so the first they know of a fraud is when their phone company alerts them. And if the attack is after-hours, thousands of dollars worth of calls could have been wracked up by then.

“I put this down to the fact it's very simple for somebody who knows nothing about VoIP (voice over IP) to have a working IP PBX set up in probably an hour,” said Mr Biddle.