Why Telecom Fraudsters Love Snow Days

Winter Storms have been bearing down on the US, which means many workers have been out of the office for snow days. Though it may be nice to get a day off, businesses should stay alert for fraudulent telecom activity. Fraudsters take advantage of holidays, weekends, and even snow storms to hide their hacking for as long as possible.

A natural disaster, when normal work is disrupted or employees are unable to come into the office, makes for an ideal environment for fraudsters to work. With multiple storms hitting New England and the current storm, Quantum, hitting the South, many fraudsters see vulnerable business phone systems as a target. With many workers out of the office, attackers can hack into unprotected networks and make illegal calls, usually racking up bills over $10,000 and sometimes exceeding $100,000. Unexpected losses that could bankrupt a small business.

When offices stand empty with power in place and working data connections and no one around to oversee the systems, it leaves a very big security hole, one that those that engage in fraud take full advantage of. In the wake of Hurricane Sandy in 2012, many businesses reported compromised VoIP systems and telecom fraud.

During major storms, fraud monitoring solutions play an important role. TransNexus telecom fraud detection solutions using SIP Analytics offer simple and automatic fraud monitoring and alerts. TransNexus solutions learn the expected traffic patterns of phone users and optimize fraud detection triggers by IP address and calling number for each hour of the week. The fraud triggersautomatically detect and stop fraudulent calls keeping enterprises protected from fraud losses, even when staff are stuck at home for a snow day.