That’s the warning from distributor Nimans who stock an effective solution in the multi-billion-pound battle against the fraudsters – to help resellers protect themselves and their customers.
Control Phreak, is a fully automatic PBX firewall which Nimans claim stops telephone hackers in their tracks. The UK is one of the top global hot spots for communication fraud - including telephone hacking - which is estimated to be running at up to $80 billion worldwide.
Control Phreak Chief Architect Roger Ansin says phone systems are susceptible to attack and should be protected from a number of on-going threats which are likely to accelerate in 2014.
Roger who is MD of The Callista Group teamed-up with Nimans several years ago to launch the effective technology which took five years to develop and comes complete with an integrated Proxy Server which only allows authorised access to PBX programming. He says ‘phreaking’ is now so big it’s being masterminded by organised crime and even terrorist groups to raise illicit funds. Control Phreak makes a phone system invisible to hackers so that it’s safe and impenetrable.
“According to a recent BBC Radio 4 programme at least 40 UK businesses reported becoming a victim in one month alone, with an average cost to each victim of £21,000,” he revealed.
”Also we have recently installed Control Phreak into a number of schools as these have been targeted by hackers. Christmas holidays see schools and colleges closing down and leaving their telephone systems unattended. The criminals are only too aware of this.”
Roger added: “I think the most topical thing at the moment is International Revenue Share (IRS) Fraud because this is the phreaking nasty which generates really huge phone bills and it’s becoming much more common now - as any phone number can be hijacked and sold.
“IRS Fraud means that every phone number now is suspect. Fraudsters are selling access to British mobile phone numbers and no one can blanket-blockade outbound calling to UK mobiles. But none of this is of any concern to Control Phreak because it intelligently detects the difference between legitimate outbound call traffic and unauthorised diverted call traffic and it just kills the bad stuff while allowing the rest to flow completely automatically - so no one has to sit there monitoring and guessing. This can only be done at PBX level and is why Control Phreak is so powerful and useful.”