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Schneier on SecurityA blog covering security and security technology. « Control Your Car from the Internet | Main | Stealing Data from Disk Drives in Photocopiers » March 21, 2007Stealing and Reselling Phone MinutesInteresting new variation of phone fraud: For the telecoms, the profit is in using VoIP to deliver calls from one phone to another. That requires a "gateway" server to connect a carrier's phone network to the Net. Phreakers break into these gateways, steal "voice minutes" and sell them to other, usually smaller, telecoms. Many of these firms then sell printed phone cards or operate call centers. "It's a great racket," says Justin Newman, CEO of BinFone Telecom of Baltimore, which has been stung by phreakers. Posted on March 21, 2007 at 11:20 AM • 12 Comments • View Blog Reactions To receive these entries once a month by e-mail, sign up for the Crypto-Gram Newsletter. "lacking the money for secure gateways". So these companies are place an insecure gateway on the public internet and then crying about stolen minutes? They should consider themselves lucky they are making any money at all! Posted by: Evan at March 21, 2007 11:55 AM I'm on the internet and I'm not protected and people are stealing from me. Now where did we hear that before... Posted by: Arik at March 21, 2007 12:24 PM "But VoIP is not as secure as old-fashioned phone lines" , Could be any worse?:) Posted by: Eduardo Cabral at March 21, 2007 12:25 PM Dear Bruce, I sent you an e-mail to advise you of your being hacked and not corrected The point: it is bad for your rep to have your url hijacked =[be hacked] Dear Bruce: I think your page or its locator has been hacked. Hop on it - it was DAY 2 YT Posted by: Peter at March 21, 2007 1:04 PM "Lacking money for expensive guarded storage facilities," the small auto manufacturer has been hit dozens of times by thieves stealing parts and raw materials. If someone printed this, everyone would laugh at that company. But, if it's VoIP, people feel bad that they are victims of hackers and phreakers. Go back to MBA school, learn how to build a decent business model, start over. Posted by: gfujimori at March 21, 2007 1:06 PM @Peter You may want to check the DNS server your pc(s) are looking towards. Chances are it or, perhaps, your own local hosts file is the one that is hacked. Posted by: Steven at March 21, 2007 2:00 PM *chuckles* Yeah, I'd be checking your system if I was you Peter.
Posted by: suomynona at March 21, 2007 2:31 PM @peter: "Subject: URstillHACKED" ...I can kinda understand why Bruce didn't pay further attention to your email. Posted by: Bunbun at March 21, 2007 3:54 PM Bruce, This is not new. Is basically the same thing that happened not a long time ago and became news when a VoIP "carrier" from US had some thousand bucks stolen. What people tend to forget is that this kind of theft also happens, though in a different way, using DISA, phreaking and specialy, identity fraud. Phone fraud had been a huge business for years, things are running so wild that in countries with strong criminal organizations like Brazil, criminals frequently use DIY PBX systems to practice their business. Posted by: Andre Fucs at March 21, 2007 8:39 PM Real phone systems still have some of the same problems. In that emplyess steel call time of a switch and then sell that off on calling cards etc. Was pretty big in indonesia back in the late ninties. On a different note. they can't be loosing much money if its still more expensive to make the gateways secure. Posted by: Greg at March 22, 2007 5:48 AM I'm still impressed by the phreakers from several years ago that were able to run up the long distance bill of an interstate emergency call box phone to the tune of several million bucks. Posted by: derf at March 22, 2007 11:48 AM I saw once a variation of the technique which was semi-legal. A company would buy a lot of GSM SIM cards with business calling plans, put the cards in gateway, and, using VoIP route international calls directly to the GSM networks without the calls passing the national telecom network (which was mandatory here at the time) and without paying inter-telecom routing fees to the national operator. Because of them, the contract for a SIM card from a GSM operator now includes the clause that the SIM may be placed only in a network terminal. Posted by: Alex Urbanowicz at March 24, 2007 10:28 AM Post a comment
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