Business telecommunications and IT systems

After extensive trials, Newbury based du Pré has officially launched its Fraud Alert service to protect their customers from the growing trend of telephone system ‘hacking’.du Pré recognised this illegal activity was on the cusp of rapid expansion, so began trials of this new solution at the start of this year. du Pré has now officially launched Fraud Alert as a fully ‘up-and-running’ service to both new and existing customers.

Peace of Mind

'It just provides us with complete peace of mind', said one of du Pré's first customers to take advantage of the new product. 'As far as we can see, it’s unique in the market. No-one else offers this level of service'.

Read the case study about how du Pré fraud alert helped this customer

How does this Fraud happen?

Telephone System hacking is a type of fraud which occurs predominantly from an external source hacking into and taking control of a company’s telephone system, then making multiple premium rate and long distance calls at that company’s expense.

The hacker calls company after company until they are answered by a voicemail system. Using the latest password hacking techniques, they obtain access to the administrator options and alter the settings.

By activating an unused extension and setting Call Forward to Exchange Line, the scam is ready.

The hacker now re-dials the company and is answered by the voicemail. By dialling the unused extension the voicemail directs their call to an exchange line, allowing the hacker to dial wherever and whatever he wants at the expense of the company. Premium rate numbers are a favourite.

Apart from a hacker having 'phone call freedom', they usually sell the number sequence. When this happens, the use and cost quickly escalate.

What does Fraud Alert do?

Fraud Alert gives you complete peace of mind against these attacks going unnoticed by monitoring your daily outbound call spend level (£s) and automatically sending an alert once an agreed threshold is crossed.

The alert is sent by email, telephone, text message or a combination of all three. In combating this type of crime the most important factor is that you are alerted within hours of the fraud beginning.

Customised

Fraud Alert is a truly customised service. In consultation with our specialists, you choose the threshold and the type of numbers to trigger your alert.

For example, if your business makes many ‘0845’ calls already, you can simply instruct us to ignore them. Equally, if you know your business makes very few ‘0906’ calls, you can instruct us to monitor just these calls at a low daily threshold.

Fraud Alert...

• is fully customised by you
• gives you peace of mind
• is provide by du Pré plc