Is my phone system safe from hacking?

Is my phone system safe from hacking?

Concerned about security?

You should be. Lets take a quick look at PBX & Cloud Hosted fraud.

Private Branch Exchanges (PBX) are telephone systems used by small and medium businesses for internal and external communications. They are frequently targeted by criminals who exploit the technology by committing what is known as PBX fraud (also known as ‘dial-through fraud’) – where the PBX is hacked into allowing calls to be routed through the system to high rate international/premium rate numbers.

The financial damage to a business can be significant, with reported losses in the UK exceeding £3 million since January 2012 and one large company claiming to have lost £2 million. It is thought that dial-through fraud is significantly under-reported, partly because of a lack of awareness or understanding of the issue. Attacks are generally prolonged and involve expensive telephone numbers being dialled hundreds or even thousands, of times, with the business left to pay the bill.

How PBX fraud works

Once an auto-dialler has been used to identify systems which are worth hacking, the criminal attacks the system in order to establish the pass code that will give them access to the PBX system itself. Features such as remote-access voicemail, message forwarding and call diversion can all be exploited to enable the illicit call dialling. In the case of voice over IP (VOIP) telephony, systems are generally compromised by malware or accessing an IP address connected with the PBX box to bypass the company’s firewalls.

What to do?

Thankfully, Telecom Services are industry experts. We use the latest updated software and work closely with law enforcement and approved manufacturers to ensure the integrity of your system.

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