Introduction
The rapid growth of telecom technologies offers convenience and opportunity. However, these advances also present significant vulnerabilities. According to the CFCA’s recent findings, the global impact of voice fraud contributed to a worldwide loss of $38.95 billion in 2023.
In December 2023, the ITU CxO committee met to address several of the industry’s most urgent points. Comprising industry leaders, the meeting underscored the insufficiency of traditional fraud management techniques and stressed the need for innovative and globally coordinated countermeasures to protect the integrity of telecom networks.
This article explores how AB Handshake’s Call Validation technology aligns with the CxO’s call and actively embodies it, offering a solid solution in the ongoing battle against telecom voice fraud.
Voice Fraud: Current Challenges
The telecom industry faces a pervasive and escalating challenge globally – voice fraud. The staggering global losses caused in 2023 mark a 12% increase from 2022, highlighting both the scale and increasingly sophisticated nature of the threat at hand.
Voice fraud has no single form. Instead, it attacks businesses and operators via several equally damaging techniques, including caller ID spoofing, International Revenue Share Fraud (IRSF), robocalls, phishing, and others.
Such techniques are ever-evolving and increasingly hard to detect with traditional methods which are incapable of stopping them adequately, especially when attacks are conducted across international borders. The geographical spread of attacks complicates regulatory and enforcement efforts, often leaving gaps for fraudsters to exploit with little consequence. The CFCA’s Global Fraud Loss Survey 2023 suggests that 30% of organizations referred less than 10 cases to authorities in 2023.
Historically, telecom providers have relied on threshold-based rules and other isolated measures to combat fraud. However, these methods are proving inadequate against fraudsters’ increasingly advanced techniques.
Threshold-based rules, for example, usually fail to detect more sophisticated and targeted fraud types, often creating significant damage before any call anomalies are detected. As found by the CFCA’s Handset Fraud Loss Survey 2023, traditional systems often give high false positive rates, averaging at around 30%. This negatively impacts customer experience, service consistency, and trust.
Ultimately, voice fraud doesn’t simply affect the finances of telecom operators and businesses; it affects consumers. As described in the GASA State of Scams Report, an estimated 25.5% of the world’s population has been victimized by scams or identity fraud.
The industry currently stands at a crossroads. A substantial gap exists in the adoption of proactive and preventative measures. An industry-wide adoption of solutions capable of addressing the complexities of modern voice fraud without compromising user experience or operational efficiency is required.
The ITU CxO’s Call to Action
Facing an “unprecedented” scale of losses and in response to the growing challenges posed by voice fraud, the ITU CxO committee, including leading authorities, met in Dubai in December 2023 to exchange views on the industry’s highest priorities and related methods for standardization of responses. Unsurprisingly, the global pandemic of voice fraud made it onto the list.
The CxO’s verdict on global voice fraud could not have been clearer: isolated and threshold-based methods fail to prevent sophisticated global fraud. The CxO committee’s subsequent communiqué emphasized the urgent need for “globally coordinated measures” to manage voice fraud’s complex and multifaceted nature.
Alarmingly, the methods described by the CxO as inadequate are the same methods currently used in isolation by the majority. The CxO urged the industry to adopt proactive and innovative solutions that are capable of providing real-time, comprehensive protection against fraudulent voice activity.
A significant part of CxO’s industry response to voice fraud focused on the potential of real-time call validation as a transformative solution that could serve as a global standard for fraud prevention. The ITU CxO committee encouraged industry members to consider adopting and standardizing real-time call validation technologies to drastically reduce instances of fraud by verifying the authenticity of each call at each end as it occurs.
Pivotal to the CxO committee’s voice fraud-related prioritization was the need for increased, industry-wide collaboration among telecommunication providers, regulators, and technology developers. Such collaboration enables the successful deployment of advanced end-end call validation solutions.
By uniting around a common framework and leveraging collective intelligence and resources, the telecom industry can more effectively confront and mitigate the threats. As a method, end-to-end call validation significantly reduces the possibility of any known voice fraud type succeeding, with zero false positives, minimizing the potential for financial and reputational damages.
Further emphasizing the importance of a standardized approach, the CxO committee suggested that ITU standards should be expanded to detail a call control protocol that supports this new wave of fraud prevention technologies. Such standards would increase effectiveness and enhance integration and consistency across the telecom industry.
The ITU CxO’s committees call for a shift towards real-time call validation and standardized protocols, underscoring their commitment to transforming how voice traffic fraud is combatted, aiming to protect providers and consumers.
AB Handshake Call Validation Aligns with ITU’s Vision
AB Handshake’s Call Validation product is pioneering and aligns precisely with the ITU CxO committee’s recent directives for combatting telecom fraud. Designed to function across all types of networks, Call Validation offers a real-time, end-to-end validation system that ensures every part of the call chain is verified, thereby eliminating the most common fraud schemes.
Call Validation establishes a mutual handshake between the originating and terminating networks. This handshake verifies that both ends of a call are legitimate and that the call details have not been tampered with in transit. The process happens in real-time, meaning fraudulent activities are detected and blocked instantly, aligning perfectly with the ITU’s call for a real-time “global solution.”
Furthermore, adopting AB Handshake’s technology does not require changes to existing infrastructure, making it an easily deployable option for telecom operators worldwide. Call Validation’s ability to integrate seamlessly with existing telecom infrastructure makes it a fine example of the solution as promoted by the CxO committee.
AB Handshake Call Validation: Solution in Action
AB Handshake’s Call Validation technology demonstrates effectiveness through seamless deployment and innovation, providing real-time, end-to-end validation of each call to ensure that only legitimate communications are processed.
Zero False Positive Rate: This precision prevents legitimate calls from being incorrectly flagged, a common drawback in many traditional fraud prevention systems. Call Validation improves customer satisfaction and operational efficiency.
Comprehensive Fraud Prevention:
AB Handshakes prevents all known voice fraud activities, including CLI spoofing, SIM box fraud, interconnect bypass, false answer supervision, robocalls, call stretching and spam. The product verifies the legitimacy of every call by confirming the consistency and accuracy of the information exchanged between the originating and terminating networks. This process checks that the call details remain unchanged throughout their journey.
Revenue Protection and Compliance:
The technology plays a crucial role in revenue protection by ensuring that all calls are correctly routed and billed according to regulatory standards. This direct approach assists operators in adhering to increasingly thorough international compliance requirements.
Global Scalability and Impact:
Call Validation integrates with existing telecom infrastructure, making it an ideal solution for operators worldwide and reflecting its alignment with the ITU’s vision for a globally coordinated response to telecom fraud.
Improved Customer Experience:
Call Validation enhances the overall user experience by reducing the frequency and impact of disruptive and harmful communications to strengthen customer confidence in their telecommunications provider.
A Handshake Worth Making
AB Handshake Call Validation offers a proactive approach to the global challenge of voice fraud, aligning with ITU standards to significantly benefit the health of our digital ecosystem. We urge readers to acknowledge the ITU CxO committee’s endorsement of approaches like AB Handshake’s Call Validation.For a deeper understanding of the ITU’s perspective on the importance of call validation, please read the full communiqué, which provides insights into why such technologies are vital for the security of our telecom landscape.