Dial-Through Fraud and what it can mean to your business

What is Dial-Through Fraud?

It is the typical hacking method that PBX fraudsters use to make thousands of calls to International Premium rate numbers from someone else’s telephone system. Unfortunately, there are many countries where regulatory control of Premium rate numbers is poor, and the criminals know that it is difficult to track and prosecute them across International borders.

With many businesses remaining unaware they are being targeted, Dial-Through Fraud often goes unnoticed over time until they are alarmed by a sharp rise in phone bills and alarm bells start ringing.

Financial dangers for businesses

Business owners are responsible for the security of their lines and telephone systems, and any calls charged to your account because of hacking are fully payable by the business. Call costs because of Dial-Through Fraud, can sometimes be in access of £50k, and can easily put businesses in financial crisis overnight.

We take Dial-Through Fraud very seriously and take several measures to prevent our clients’ telephone systems from being hacked:

• Changing the telephone system administrator and technician access codes from the default setting to unique codes.
• Changing the system voicemail administration password from the default setting to a unique password.
• Changing the universal default password for mailboxes on the voicemail to a unique password.
• Call barring the voicemail port(s) and paging ports from making international calls.

To find out more about telephone system fraud protection then please do call us on 01403 333830.