Telecom fraud and it’s impact on mobile carrier business

DOI: 10.31673/2412-9070.2022.061720

Abstract

In this article was described most common types of fraud on mobile network and its impact on carrier business. Most common fraud types were described such as IRSF, wangiri, interconnect bypass fraud, arbitrage, traffic pumping. IRSF takes advantage of premium phone rates, which are then dialed unwittingly by users. Reviewed OTP-based IRSF and wangiri fraud realization. Wangiri is a telephone scam where criminals trick you into calling premium rate numbers. Interconnect bypass fraud takes advantage of something called a termination rate to make cheaper phone calls. VoIP bypass was studied as type of Interconnect bypass fraud. Arbitrage is the general practice of capitalizing on price differences in the long-distance rates between countries. Traffic pumping is a dubious practice by which some local exchange telephone carriers in rural areas of the United States inflate the volume of incoming calls to their networks to profit from the greatly increased inter-carrier compensation fees. Following conclusions were made: Telecom fraud is very complex and variable phenomenon due to carrier network specifics. With new technologies and services delivered on their network telecom operators should adapt their fraud monitoring and analysis methods up to date with minimum delay; In reviewed fraud examples we can see that one fraud activity can use realization technics of several different fraud types. Detection of such activities will require a flexible solution, that can adapt with or without man interaction; Fraud happens, when victim is not expecting it. Fraudsters can make calls, when subscriber is outside of business hours, they can make attempts to multiple subscribers during day and carrier won’t notice it until subscriber complain or someone notice strange trend. Scammers can even hack subscriber device or PBX and owner won’t even notice it until service payment; Premium or service number can be used by fraudster in order to realize scam. In such case there should be an agreement with carrier and business for list of allowed or blacklisted numbers; Fraud is not limited only to voice services. Realization methods can be used to SMS or IP network services.

Keywords: CFCA; IRSF; Wangiri; Interconnect bypass fraud; Arbitrage; Traffic pumping.

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