Telecoms fraud is defined as the abuse of telecom products or services with the aim of illegally withdrawing money from either a telecom service provider or its customers, and is estimated to cost the telecoms industry €29 billion a year. In a survey of 90 communication service providers, conducted by Mobileum Inc, 47% of respondents have found that fraud events have increased since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. With fraudulent activity on the rise, this article will discuss how the Telco industry can prevent and detect criminal activity.
Small and agile Telcos may be paving the way for telecoms security solutions. Arguably, the only way for small Telcos to grow is through developing innovative products to be sold to larger peers. Cyberforce – a division of Post Luxembourg – provides a recent example of this. The small Luxembourg-based Telco has developed a telecoms fraud prevention solution. The software performs a network vulnerability assessment and uses an intrusion detection system which monitors telecoms networks for signs of irregular activity, such as mass messaging at an attempt to defraud customers. Although initially developed for internal use for Post Luxembourg and the European Investment Bank, it is now being sold to large telco industry players.
Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre provides a more collaborative outlook on the future of telecom fraud prevention. Their latest 2019 Cyber Telecom Crime Report critiques the current industry landscape where the cost of telecoms fraud is considered a “cost of doing business” and therefore is absorbed by individual Telco companies. Europol recommends a collective, cross-border telecom network which would share threat intelligence and evidence between international Telco providers and law enforcement agencies. Connecting these dots as a global team would allow telecom security to catch up with the evolution of telecom technology itself, essentially resulting in a number of arrests and a decrease of international telecoms fraud.
In conclusion, telecoms fraud has increased since the start of the coronavirus pandemic and is being challenged at both an organisational level and at a geopolitical level. Although few Telco players may benefit from developing and selling fraud prevention solutions, overall the grand cost of falling victim to telecoms fraud demands for a unified industry approach in the long term as suggested by Europol. What do you think is the future of telecoms fraud? If you would like to discuss or find out more about this topic please reach out to me via email .