Mobile Operators Faced Over 10 Million Fraudulent Call Attempts During The First Quarter of 2016

Wholesale carrier  BICS has introduced a fraud prevention solution that proactively prevents criminal activity targeted at its customers networks across the globe by crowdsourcing details of suspicious activities to identify and block traffic to known fraud destinations

 BICS, a global wholesale carrier for voice, mobile data and capacity services, today announced its crowdsourcing fraud prevention platform, FraudGuard, detected and blocked more than 10 million fraudulent call attempts on its customers’ networks during the first three months of 2016. 

FraudGuard enables wireless operators to proactively protect against fraud on their network. By crowdsourcing details of suspicious network activity across BICS’ global customer base, the platform is able to identify and block activity to known fraud destinations. Its comprehensive fraud database now contains over 400,000 numbers around the world associated with criminal activity. 

The Communications Fraud Control association estimates global telecoms fraud costs the industry €3.3bn each year, with the most prevalent types being International Revenue Share Fraud, PBX hacking and Wangiri. BICS’ fraud prevention solutions are powered by a global anti-fraud crowdsourcing platform which, in addition to offering other value added services, is designed to proactively protect mobile networks from current and common fraud threats.

 Among the tier one operators to adopt FraudGuard is French provider Bouygues Telecom. In the first three months of 2016, BICS blocked over 200 attempted attacks on Bouygues, saving the operator an estimated €130k. 

“The advent of all-IP networks has magnified the speed and magnitude of attacks aimed at the telecoms industry,” said Katia Gonzalez, Head of Fraud Operations, BICS. “Being a truly global industry means attacks can come from anywhere at any time, so it’s imperative network operators share knowledge of incidents to enable proactive measures to be taken by their peers. Only by collaboration and adopting proactive measures can the industry beat this growing problem.” 

Thierry Nedellec, Wholesale Manager at Bouygues added: “Protecting revenue from fraudulent activity is a key priority for Bouygues and we have already reaped the benefits from adopting BICS’ FraudGuard platform, with over 200 fraud attempts blocked at the start of this year and no incidences of legitimate calls being prevented – all with minimal input from our operational team.”

Source: BICS release