Over the past few years, Teledynamic has observed a steadily-increasing number of toll fraud and security breaches on business telephone systems. There are two trends responsible for this increase. First, hackers are growing increasingly sophisticated. Second, telecommunications systems are now typically connected to customer's data networks, allowing hackers an additional pathway to create havoc.

What exactly are these problems?

TOLL FRAUD
Toll fraud is when a criminal gains "backdoor" access to your phone system and then resells that access so people can make free phone calls on your lines. Typically these calls are to international destinations. We've seen phone bills totaling thousands of dollars of fraudulent calls. It only takes a few hours to rack up big bills as the access is sold to many people and the only limit on the number of calls are the number of phone lines you have.

SECURITY BREACHES
Security breaches are of two varieties.

•  The theft of information such as phone numbers dialed (think of the value of that information to your competitors).

•  Attacks on your system to render it inoperable.

What can you do about it?

Teledynamic recommends aggressively and continuously managing your systems from a security perspective.   Fortunately, there are many preventive measures a business can take to lessen the chance and impact of such attacks. Unfortunately, too many companies learn about fraud and security issues after they've been hit.

What Steps Can You Take To Protect Your System?

Contact your equipment vendor, local telephone company, and long distance telephone company and ask them for help. They should be able to provide information and help to determine what security and anti-fraud measures are suited to your situation. Most carriers have the ability to restrict certain types of calls and many have fraud detection capabilities. They can also provide information about monitoring services that are available to help you quickly detect unusual usage. However, it's up to you to take the responsibility and enact your defense plan.

How Can Teledynamic Help?

PHONE SECURITY AUDIT
Teledynamic provides comprehensive phone fraud and security audit services. The cost is $400 to non-support plan customers, discounted to Guardian One customers and free to our Telecare Priority One customers. Contact us at 510-342-4222 or info@teledynamic.com for more information.

RESOURCES
We have several documents that include such topics as security best practices, a security FAQ, a "Telecom Fraud & Security Checklist" and product-specific information. Teledynamic support plan customers have access to these documents by clicking here. To contact us to find more information about our support plans, please click here.