The Communications Fraud Control Association’s  (CFCA) annual fraud survey provides telecoms fraud managers with an assessment of the key revenue threats from fraud.  The latest survey identified the top frauds committed against service providers.

• $10.76 B (USD) – International Revenue Share Fraud (IRSF)

International Revenue Share Fraud has been an issue for more than a decade.  It relies on a fraudster partnering with a network service provider that charges high rates for call termination.  The fraudster then makes lots of very long calls to that country, which are terminated by the operator and the revenue is shared between the two.

IRSF is only possible because of the delay between the time a call is made and the time call data records are analysed by the network.  Operators that can reduce this time lag to zero and/or identify high volumes of long calls coming from one country to another have the best chance of reducing this activity.

• $5.97 B (USD) – Interconnect Bypass (e.g. SIM Box)

Fraudsters exploit the difference between international and local call rates by buying thousands of local SIM cards and inserting them into a GSM Gateway or SIM Box, which is then connected to the internet. They then sell international phone minutes and connect them as local calls. The operator is therefore denied the full international payment rate, resulting in a loss of revenue.

SIM Box fraud relies on two things: the value of termination being more than the cost of a local call and the availability of thousands of SIM cards.  Operators that make lucrative offers on local calling bundles need to be extremely wary of how easy it is for people to gain access to large volumes of SIM cards.

• $3.77 B (USD) – Premium Rate Service

There are still countries where the premium rate market is unregulated and fraudsters can generate as much as $2 per minute of calling by encouraging people to call premium rate numbers or diverting traffic illegally to premium rates.  A typical scam is wangiri, where millions of one second calls are made to mobile devices.  The calls do not connect but do leave a “missed call” footprint.  Only a small number of callers need to return these calls to generate significant revenue for fraudsters.

A fraud that is not referenced in the CFCA report is OTT bypass. According to a recent report carried out by Revector, the telecoms anti-fraud specialist, mobile network operators have lost 20% of termination revenues to OTT hijack in the last 12 months on average, with some operators losing more than 70%. Revector offers a solution to combat OTT bypass so that network operators can regain control of their network.

To assess your network losses contact Revector today: Partner@revector.com