Who Protects Call Centers from Telecom Fraud: Humbug Does
Humbug Telecom Labs announces the release of their Call Center Solution White Paper.
Ramat HaSharon, Israel, November 12, 2011 --(PR.com)-- Humbug Telecom Labs, provider of carrier-class fraud prevention, detection and telecom analytics for any size business; today announced the release of a new white paper, Benefits of Telecom Analytics & Fraud Detection for Call Centers.
“Managing telecom fraud is an increasingly important priority for Call Center managers. Telecom fraud attacks may cost a Call Center tens, or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in as little as two days,” said Yaniv Rofé, CEO of Humbug Telecom Labs.
He continues “Between integration with the CRM, and with complex IVRs, Call Centers are facing greater risks. Historically, call centers could not afford the prohibitively expensive customer premises based solutions in the market. Humbug provides call centers with free carrier-class telecom analytics and affordable fraud prevention and detection tools in the cloud, so there is really no need to manage the risk of telecom fraud in-house any longer.”
The recently published 2011 Global Fraud Loss Survey, by the Communications Fraud Control Association (CFCA), agrees. According to their findings, telecom fraud costs businesses more than $40 Billion each year.
Even carriers with huge war chests lose as much as 4.5% of their revenue to telecom fraud. While hackers do not discriminate by size, industry or location, they ideally prefer victims with weak fortifications and high call volume infrastructures. Call centers, therefore, become particularly attractive targets because of one crucial factor; they cannot afford the same level of security as carriers do, yet a call center’s infrastructure allows hackers to manipulate a system capable of handling large volumes of simultaneous calls. And since call volume is expected to be high, hackers assume they can fly below the radar and exploit the system for long periods of time.
"One of the keys to fraud prevention is collaboration," said Nir Simionovich, Humbug's chief architect, who co-ran the Security Round Tables at Astricon 2011. In this session, as if to confirm Mr. Rofé’s comment, an audience member got up and explained that his company had experienced "$400,000 worth of fraud in 2 days."
Phishing attacks represent another call center specific cause for concern. Fraudsters crudely phish for customer information from unsuspecting call center operators. Depending on the business of the Call Center, the fraudster can then make purchases, money transfers, incur charges, or otherwise defraud the customer and the call center. Although phishing attacks focus on defrauding Call Center customers, they result in lower Call Center revenues and in ruined customer relations.
To learn how to protect your call center with affordable fraud alerting tools and a database of over 55,000 industry confirmed blacklisted numbers Humbug Telecom Labs has published a white paper about the Benefits of Telecom Analytics and Fraud Detection for Call Centers. You can download the white paper at http://www.humbuglabs.org/index.php/telecom/callcenters.
About Humbug Telecom Labs
Humbug Telecom Labs makes it affordable for any sized business to access carrier-class fraud prevention and detection tools, and simultaneously gaining powerful business intelligence, which puts users in command of their telecom activity. Humbug offers free telecom analytics to view telecom traffic in a real time, concise, readable Google Analytics-type format. No PBX report comes close. Customizable real time alerts can be configured by the user to track telecom traffic behavior and keep track of spending. Humbug is ideal for call centers, ITSPs (Internet Telephony Service Providers), organizations that sell by phone, businesses with significant telecom expenditures and any responsible organization cognizant of the global fraud epidemic. Humbug easily integrates with a host of popular open source and proprietary PBX systems. www.humbuglabs.org.
All trademarks are the properties of their respective owners.
###
PR Contact:
Eric Klein
Humbug Telecom Labs
IL Tel: +972-54-666-0933
US Tel: +1 518 249 1199
Eric@humbuglabs.org
“Managing telecom fraud is an increasingly important priority for Call Center managers. Telecom fraud attacks may cost a Call Center tens, or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in as little as two days,” said Yaniv Rofé, CEO of Humbug Telecom Labs.
He continues “Between integration with the CRM, and with complex IVRs, Call Centers are facing greater risks. Historically, call centers could not afford the prohibitively expensive customer premises based solutions in the market. Humbug provides call centers with free carrier-class telecom analytics and affordable fraud prevention and detection tools in the cloud, so there is really no need to manage the risk of telecom fraud in-house any longer.”
The recently published 2011 Global Fraud Loss Survey, by the Communications Fraud Control Association (CFCA), agrees. According to their findings, telecom fraud costs businesses more than $40 Billion each year.
Even carriers with huge war chests lose as much as 4.5% of their revenue to telecom fraud. While hackers do not discriminate by size, industry or location, they ideally prefer victims with weak fortifications and high call volume infrastructures. Call centers, therefore, become particularly attractive targets because of one crucial factor; they cannot afford the same level of security as carriers do, yet a call center’s infrastructure allows hackers to manipulate a system capable of handling large volumes of simultaneous calls. And since call volume is expected to be high, hackers assume they can fly below the radar and exploit the system for long periods of time.
"One of the keys to fraud prevention is collaboration," said Nir Simionovich, Humbug's chief architect, who co-ran the Security Round Tables at Astricon 2011. In this session, as if to confirm Mr. Rofé’s comment, an audience member got up and explained that his company had experienced "$400,000 worth of fraud in 2 days."
Phishing attacks represent another call center specific cause for concern. Fraudsters crudely phish for customer information from unsuspecting call center operators. Depending on the business of the Call Center, the fraudster can then make purchases, money transfers, incur charges, or otherwise defraud the customer and the call center. Although phishing attacks focus on defrauding Call Center customers, they result in lower Call Center revenues and in ruined customer relations.
To learn how to protect your call center with affordable fraud alerting tools and a database of over 55,000 industry confirmed blacklisted numbers Humbug Telecom Labs has published a white paper about the Benefits of Telecom Analytics and Fraud Detection for Call Centers. You can download the white paper at http://www.humbuglabs.org/index.php/telecom/callcenters.
About Humbug Telecom Labs
Humbug Telecom Labs makes it affordable for any sized business to access carrier-class fraud prevention and detection tools, and simultaneously gaining powerful business intelligence, which puts users in command of their telecom activity. Humbug offers free telecom analytics to view telecom traffic in a real time, concise, readable Google Analytics-type format. No PBX report comes close. Customizable real time alerts can be configured by the user to track telecom traffic behavior and keep track of spending. Humbug is ideal for call centers, ITSPs (Internet Telephony Service Providers), organizations that sell by phone, businesses with significant telecom expenditures and any responsible organization cognizant of the global fraud epidemic. Humbug easily integrates with a host of popular open source and proprietary PBX systems. www.humbuglabs.org.
All trademarks are the properties of their respective owners.
###
PR Contact:
Eric Klein
Humbug Telecom Labs
IL Tel: +972-54-666-0933
US Tel: +1 518 249 1199
Eric@humbuglabs.org
Contact
Humbug Telecom Labs
Eric Klein
+1 518 249 1199
humbuglabs.org
Eric Klein
+1 518 249 1199
humbuglabs.org
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