TRACED Act calls for one-ring scam protection

The Pallone-Thune TRACED Act, which was signed into law on December 30, 2019, includes requirements for the FCC to initiate a proceeding to protect called parties from one-ring scams (also known as Wangiri, Japanese for one-and-cut). Here’s an overview of one-ring scams, the roadmap for this FCC directive, and what protection looks like.

One-ring scam profile

The Wangiri one-ring scam profile is simple:

1. The perpetrator programs an auto dialer to dial many numbers and hang up each call after just one ring.
   • In some variations, these one-ring calls might be repeated to the same numbers several times.
   • Sometimes these calls are made when it’s the middle of the night in the called party’s location.
2. The caller ID for these calls is a premium rate number. Anyone who calls that number is going to pay very high charges. The perpetrator will get a share of fees collected.
3. Victims might be curious about these repeated calls or annoyed at receiving such calls in the middle of the night. So, they return the call—big mistake.
4. The premium rate number is generally set up to put the caller on hold then play hold music or recordings with vacation travel deals… anything to keep the victim on the call for as long as possible.
5. The victim will see significant charges on their next phone bill for callbacks they made to premium rate numbers.

The Pallone-Thune TRACED Act

Section 12 of the Pallone-Thune TRACED Act directs the FCC to initiate a proceeding to protect called parties from one-ring scams. In this proceeding, the Commission shall consider how it can:

1. Work with Federal and State law enforcement
2. Work with governments of foreign countries
3. Work with the Federal Trade Commission to better educate consumers about one-ring scams and how to avoid becoming a victim
4. Incentivize voice service providers to stop one-ring scam calls, including consideration of allowing carrier-initiated blocking
5. Work with entities that provide call-blocking services to address one-ring scams
6. Establish obligations for international gateway providers, including potential requirements that they verify with the foreign originator the nature or purpose of the call before initiating service.

Timeline

The law instructs the FCC to begin proceedings no later than 120 days after enactment, which was December 30, 2019. Therefore, this deadline is April 28, 2020.

Further, the act requires the FCC to report to Congress no later than one year after enactment, or December 30, 2020.

Protection from one-ring scams

TransNexus has developed SIP Analytics, which performs dynamic call traffic analysis in real time. SIP Analytics is available in our ClearIP and NexOSS software products. SIP Analytics can identify many different types of attack profiles, including one-ring scams, or Wangiri.

Detection

To detect Wangiri, the software uses the termination rate of the calling number and dynamically calculates cumulative running totals, or fraud scores, of calls from a calling number, or calling number and user, or calling number and group.

When the cumulative fraud score reaches a predefined threshold, the software determines that a Wangiri attack is in progress.

The software creates a trigger event to track, respond to, and report on the attack.

Mitigation

SIP Analytics provides options for the action to be taken in response to an attack. These options can be set at the group, user, or individual subscriber level. They include:

• Report only – typically used during initial setup to see what’s detected using the current settings
• Divert – can be used to reroute calls to voicemail or a CAPTCHA device
• Block – prevents the call from being delivered by returning a Decline message to the originating provider

Deployment

Implementation is typically a quick and easy process. Simply create a SIP trunk pointing to our software and put it at the top of your routing table. Your network will send SIP INVITEs to the software as if it were a normal SIP trunk.

Our software will perform SIP Analytics, and any other services you have configured, and return a standard SIP message to the device so that it either allows, diverts or blocks the call. It only takes milliseconds.

Contact us today to learn how you can protect your subscribers from one-ring scams quickly and easily.