General

Phone number spoofed by scammers. Operator and User Issues

Hello.

Each of us faces telephone scammers, they are persistent and sometimes endlessly

irritate with their arrogance and arrogance.Only Sberbank clients receive up to 100,000 calls a day, according to Deputy Chairman of the Board Stanislav Kuznetsov. There was a short respite at the beginning of spring, since the beginning of summer the number of calls has been growing and reaching the usual level. And these are only clients of one, albeit the largest bank in Russia. A general estimate of the number of fraudulent calls is not available to anyone, the numbers diverge, but you can safely multiply them by two. “Police officers” constantly call me and demand that the secrecy of the investigation be kept. They call me whatever they want, the information in their databases varies greatly. And the bases themselves are not so difficult to assemble, for example, you can use the GetContact application, where there are a large number of numbers. But even with such simple work, scammers do not bother, the rule of large numbers applies here - you need to understand that this is a business with its own call centers, shifts of workers that deceive the people of Russia.

Let's look at one of the aspects of workfraudsters, namely number spoofing (it is also called Caller ID Spoofing). In practice, you see that the number X-XXX-9998877 is calling you, perhaps you even have it recorded as the phone number of a bank or other organization, even your friend or friend. Fraudsters can pretend to be police officers, use a phone number belonging to a real police department. And, of course, a person who is far from understanding the technical possibility of such a substitution develops confidence in the caller, he sees that this is a real number. Alas, it is not difficult to fake a number, hence the first rule is never to believe what you see with your own eyes, the phone number and name on the screen of your phone can be anything. Unfortunately, this information cannot be trusted.

Fraudsters - mass service and piece goods

When calling people in bulk, changing the numberhappens to almost any number, it all depends on the legend used by scammers. This number may not be familiar to you at first. The quality of deception in this case is designed for onslaught, pressure and quick emotions. To scare, to force something to do.

Another type of fraud is almost never described in the press, as it is piece work and the victims try to hide the very fact of fraud. Let me give you a story that happened to me as an example.

In the evening, the bell rings, the screen displaysthe name of my good friend. But someone else's voice is on the phone, which inconsistently explains that Nikolai had just knocked down a man, the issue urgently needs to be resolved, and he asked me to dial. The amount to solve the problem needs a joke, which alerted me. He promised to immediately send a “policeman” to the proposed phone number, hung up and called back. My friend's surprise knew no bounds, he sent me a screenshot of his calls, tried to quarrel with the operator, as someone, in his opinion, made a duplicate SIM card and is now playing around with such things. Of course, there was no duplicate, the scammers changed the number and targeted me and a couple of other acquaintances of Nikolai, their coordinates were found on social networks. A couple of people sent money, one even got offended at Nikolai that he lost this amount because of him. Although everything is so transparent here that you wonder. A simple conclusion - call back at a familiar number, scammers will not be able to answer your call, or this is a completely different class of fraud, and then you have little chance against it without proper preparation.

Fortunately, those who are trying to cash in onpoint deceptions, not so much, the work is laborious, requires a different level of training. But there are also such scammers, for them the substitution of the number is a necessary condition for the success of the scam and getting money.

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The reason is that a number of MCN Telecom numbersscammers used in their calls. No one began to understand how everything works in practice, to a greater extent, the security forces portrayed violent activity. It is akin to the fact that the police will start arresting people if, during thefts, thieves leave “their” coordinates and names. It is clear that this will not be real data. Which is logical, right?

I have come across a number of recommendations.security officials for operators, how to deal with the substitution of numbers and what needs to be done for this. Unfortunately, the recommendations are very general and related to security in general, and they cannot fix the problem of number substitution in any way.

However, in Russia there are techniques that allowpartially reduce the intensity of the problem. The Big Four operators have created a system that exchanges information about numbers at the time of a call. That is, all operators have a direct junction, when a call is made, information about the existence of the number is requested. For example, I have a MegaFon number, and when I call an MTS subscriber, the receiving party automatically asks for information whether to skip the call or not. Thus, the numbers used by the scammers are cut off. For example, someone took my phone number and tries to replace it on the network of some Russian operator, so the substitution will not work. That is, inside our large operators, the problem has been partially removed.

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Small operators also need to exchangeinformation with other operators so that they know which numbers are valid and which are not. The same MCN Telecom has joints with large operators. Here is the comment of the press service of MCN Telecom: “To date, with the three main mobile operators in Russia and several alternative ones, a solution has been implemented to skip calls from MCN Telecom numbering only in direct joints, which in fact has significantly reduced the number of complaints about fraudulent calls using MCN Telecom numbering ".

But for SIP telephony, this does not solve the problem, becausehow is it possible to change the number. Therefore, operators need anti-fraud systems that catch scammers on the fly and block them. About two years ago, Russian operators installed such systems on their networks, and the Slovenian company Hexagon Group unexpectedly became the supplier for everyone. Beeline has developed its own version of the anti-fraud platform, I will quote the possibilities that it has:

  • 5000 requests per second;
  • 150 million requests per day;
  • request processing speed no more than 50 ms.

Since July 2022, 28 have been removed from the Beeline.6 million unwanted calls from networks of other operators, 4.8 million calls are blocked per day on their network. The figures for other operators are similar, that is, we are talking about millions of calls daily.

It must be understood that the use of one system perdifferent networks makes protection very effective, in fact, the solution from Hexagon “sees” problems on each network, maintains a single database. Large operators offer this anti-fraud system to smaller operators so that they can use its capabilities. De facto, it has become a standard, for example, you, as a small operator, can purchase it at the same MTS as a service. We do not have a law that regulates the mandatory use of such a system, but such wishes are expressed by the security forces. Still, such a system will not be able to solve the problem 100%, but it forces those who use them to constantly change the replacement numbers. That is, there is still a certain sense.

Here is what the press service of MTS said about this:“Operators support initiatives to combat number spoofing. Large mobile operators, on their own initiative, introduce anti-fraud services and cooperate with each other and with banks, tracking and blocking calls with spoofed numbers. Thanks to comprehensive measures, including through the introduction of an automated anti-fraud system, the number of fraudulent calls on the MTS network has decreased to a minimum level in the last year.

Technical and software solutions for majorRussian mobile operators do not allow number spoofing on their networks. If the call of the replacement number goes to the network of these operators, the substitution occurs earlier, on the networks of small fixed operators and IP telephony, which currently do not have technical solutions to filter and limit such substitutions, or the substitution is carried out deliberately. It is much more difficult to track calls of numbers already substituted in this way, which are included in this form on the networks of large operators.

In order to understand the problem in context, one must knowthat the bulk of calls with spoofed numbers come from abroad. The substitution of numbers in Russia is easily tracked, incl. technical solutions and procedural measures. Currently, work is underway mainly with mobile operators, while the main sources of threats are analogue networks of small fixed-line operators, analogue fragments of Rostelecom networks and IP telephony operators (SPDGI), on which number substitution / substitution takes place.

Source in the big four operators sodescribed the problem with number substitution: “Given the state of equipment of telecom operators in the Russian Federation (primarily fixed-line ones), today it is technically impossible to create a system that would exclude the substitution of numbers online. To do this, it is first necessary to completely modernize the networks of fixed operators, some of which are still built on analog equipment. Until the moment when all operators join the system (expected in 2025), connecting only large mobile operators to it will not solve the problem of fraud.”

The Beeline press service also gave a similar assessment:“When studying cases related to number substitution, most often there are cases when operators do not control the use of numbers by their subscribers. Such subscribers can be applications, cloud services or a standard connection through a PBX. It is almost impossible to isolate traffic with spoofed numbers by the end operator alone. To solve this problem, it is necessary to build a verification process, within which the operator can request confirmation of the legitimacy of the number from the owner of the numbering or a partner who helps to ensure this process. Such a process is built among BIG4 operators, and at the moment Beeline helps to connect other market players to this process.”

What can we expect? How to protect yourself and loved ones?

The Russian market is gradually building a systemfight against the substitution of numbers, but the heterogeneity of equipment, various existing loopholes cannot completely eliminate such calls. Operators are reducing their number, but they cannot completely overcome this scourge. The more players, including small operators, connect to the anti-fraud platform (it is, by and large, one for all), the better calls are filtered out. Over time, the system will become more complex, and eventually this problem will be solved, but I will not dare to say with confidence that this will happen in 2025. Perhaps the deadlines will shift, which means that until then, we, as users, need to keep our eyes open. You can’t believe that you see on the phone screen exactly the number from which you are called. Be skeptical and distrustful, do not play along with scammers. The problem of number substitution is serious, it is impossible to solve it in one day. So, you need to be patient until the technical possibility makes such calls a thing of the past. Be careful, tell your loved ones what number spoofing is and why scammers often use different schemes with spoofed numbers.

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