As society evolves, dependence on telecommunications technology is on the increase. Cybernetic criminals take full advantage of electronic devices and continually look for new ways to exploit vulnerabilities and access information. Therefore, cooperation and information exchange between the different police forces and the private sector have become an essential element in the fight against this type of crime.

An example of this collaborationis the joint Cyber-Telecom Crime 2019 report, published byEuropol andTrend Micro. The report offers a general vision of how telecommunications fraud works and serves as a technical guide for groups of interest for the telecommunications industry.

This report reveals that fraud in the field of telecommunications is becoming a low-risk alternative to the traditional financial crime model. Its reduced cost and the increase in the availability of computer piracy teams mean that this type of fraud is on the increase. It is calculated that the cost of fraud in the world of telecommunications is 29,000 million Euros annually.

The main objective of criminals is to access customer or company accounts, where the debt can be generated in the criminal’s favour.
The most common methods can be divided into different categories that range from fraud to highly sophisticated scams:

– Vishingcalls–a combination of the words Voice and Phishing–is a telephone scam involving fraudsters deceiving victims into giving their personal, financial and security information or simply forcing them to transfer money to them.

– A ring or JapanesWangiri is a telephone scam where criminals deceive victims by dialling special rate numbers. A fraudster sets up a system to dial a long list of random telephone numbers. Each call rings only once and is then hung up, leaving the lost call on the potential victims’ telephones. Often, users see a lost call and, thinking that it is valid, call the number at the fraudulent rate.

– International fraud for the distribution of income has been the most damaging fraud scheme to date. This involves transferring the monetary value of one operator to another, based on trust between telecommunications operators. Fraudsters wait for for records to expire before taking other steps to launder money.

The work team Europol EC3 CyTel, created in 2018, brings together over 70 police experts and global members of the telecommunications industry, with the aim of sharing information, knowledge and experiences and the necessary techniques to combat this type of fraud.

_____

Aquest apunt en català / Esta entrada en español / Post en français