Porrima: Why are phone scams hard to tackle?
The rise of phone scams is gathering pace, with consumer group Which? suggesting that in the 12 months running up to March 2021, phone call and text message fraud across England, Wales and Northern Ireland was up by 83% from the previous year. This could be due to the surge of deliveries during the pandemic and various lockdowns.
Large, reputable businesses like Royal Mail, HSBC, Hermes, Carphone Warehouse and more are being impersonated in order to gain money from people. The way it works is the fraudsters send a person a message which seems like it could be from a genuine number. The text says the recipient needs to make a small payment (usually a normal shipping price, for example, £2.99) before the package can be
delivered to them. Once the link has been clicked, the person is taken to a replica site, where they are told to fill in their personal banking details. This is how they steal your banking details.
The difficulty in spotting the signs between a real text or phone call to a fake one can be really tough. Matthew Gribben, a cyber security expert, told the BBC that: “There’s no way for the current UK phone network to guarantee 100% that the presentation number it is being told is the actual originating number – it has to take your word for it,” says Mr Gribben, who is a former consultant to GCHQ, the UK government intelligence agency.
This comes after Abdisalaam Dahir, a 20-year-old computer science student from North London, sent fraudulent messages from a wide range of trusted organisations, including Royal Mail, HMRC, banks and mobile phone providers.
Intelligence work by the Dedicated Card and Payment Crime Unit (DCPCU) identified that Dahir was involved in sending ‘smishing’ text message campaigns to defraud the public out of over £185,000 between 1 December 2019 and 20 May 2021. Smishing is the fraudulent practice of sending text messages pretending to be from reputable companies.
Detective Constable Stephen Reilly at the DCPCU, told the BBC: “Dahir tried to scam the public by sending out fake texts claiming to be from genuine organisations for his own personal gain.
“Through close collaboration with the mobile phone company and the banking industry, we were able to identify Dahir and bring him to justice.”
Why are phone scams so hard to tackle?
The telephone identification protocol called SS7, dating back to 1975, is what number someone calls and texts from – this is known as the ‘presentation number’. The reason for the SS7 is so that calls can be connected from one to another. However, fraudsters have access to this and thus can steal a presentation number, link it to their own number and henceforth start the process of smishing or phishing.
“SS7 was developed assuming there would always be legitimate activity and goodwill around the use of it,” explains Katia Gonzalez, head of fraud prevention and security at BICS, a Brussels-based telecoms firm that connects and protects mobile phone networks.
“There’s too much legacy technology that we can’t move away from – we’re going to have these SS7 2G/3G networks for at least another 10 years.”
How can I spot a phone scam?
Knowing the signs of fraudulent activity and when to spot a smishing message can be hard. Take Five to Stop Fraud is a national campaign that offers straightforward and impartial advice to help everyone protect themselves from preventable financial fraud.
Take Five are urging everyone to do the following when they receive a message or phone call they are not sure on:
“STOP – Taking a moment to stop and think before parting with your money or information. CHALLENGE – It is ok to reject, refuse or ignore any requests. Only criminals will try to rush or panic you.
PROTECT – Contact your bank immediately if you think you have fallen for a scam and report it to Action Fraud.”
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We at Porrima have designed, developed, and implemented intelligent and sophisticated sales software solutions for telecoms and IT partners of different sizes, from small one-man bands to large businesses in partnership with the UK mobile networks. Our objective here at Porrima is to use our in-depth industry knowledge and technical programming experience to offer a unique product portfolio that will work for you. We want to help you increase your productivity, eliminate the threat of misquoting, free up your sales team, increase your profits, and exceed your expectations. Porrima products are free to try, easy to set up and work seamlessly together. Please contact us here where one of our friendly team members can assist you and will respond to your request as soon as possible.
