Business Telephone Systems Security; PABX toll fraud is becoming increasingly widespread and is costing businesses thousands of pounds in unexpected phone bills.

Retell’s new Sense Voice Firewall can stop this activity by recognising and disconnecting unauthorised calls.

PABX ‘phreaking’ as it is sometimes known is carried out by fraudsters who dial in to a phone system and guess the extension or system password, often left at factory settings, thereby enabling them to make calls without the owner’s knowledge.

Steve Cobley of Retell said, ‘This is a very serious issue as customers have no recourse from their service provider for phone calls however made via their phone system and telephone system suppliers are on the receiving end of the blame. Call management and other software can identify the problem, but it then it might be too late. One industry-engineering source informed us during trials that even if a PABX is password-protected hackers could attack the system via the back door engineering or developer password.

Cobley continues, ‘Development of active features which enables us to change calls and add audio into a call through our Sense Call Recording platform has meant that we have been able to rapidly implement the Sense Firewall. It is easily installed between the network entry point and any PABX as part of our Sense Recording System or as a standalone unit’.

Sense Voice Firewall monitors dialled calls and electronically disconnects calls to unauthorised numbers that are pre set by the owner. The functionality of the PABX and the network for all other calls is maintained at all times. The Firewall can be programmed to match business hours, prevent calls to unauthorised numbers both in and out of working hours and allow calls to special numbers only, for example the emergency services.

Sense Voice Firewall is part of the ever-expanding suite of Sense recording solutions that includes Sense Call Analyser a call management system with integrated call recording manufactured in the UK by Retell.