An Easy-to-Deploy Fraud-Control Handshake for Voice Operators is Here: When Will it Takeoff?
For decades, operators have been losing tens of billions of dollars a year from international traffic fraud. So why — after all this time — does the problem persist?
There’s no simple answer to that question, but three key factors ensure traffic fraud remains an on-going problem:
Fraud is an electronic cat-and-mouse game. The fraudster-mice improve their stealth and automation techniques to steal more “cheese”, while the operator-cats work to better detect and tighten their security so the mice give up and attack easier targets.
The backbone of international voice commerce is the utter certainty that each operator in the voice transit chain gets paid regardless of whether an operator loses money to a fraudster. In short, a certain amount of fraud is built-in to the international voice business to ensure calls get through.
Operators are on their own to detect and block fraud. Inter-operator sharing of deny-lists is widely discussed, but is relatively ineffective. Plus there’s a lack of international frameworks and entities to facilitate fraud intelligence exchange and anti-fraud cooperation in real time.