pacific islands - mobileum€¦ · •vodafone group (uk) fraud advisor (4 years) ... •a...

Colin Yates PITA Fraud Advisor

IRSF and it’s impact on the

Pacific Islands

WeDo Technologies User Group Malaysia 2017 January 18-19 - Grand Hyatt Kuala Lumpur Hotel 1

Contents

• Introduction (Me)

• Introduction (PITA)

• What does an average Pacific Island Telco look like (3 examples)

• International Revenue Share Fraud

- Number hijacking (misappropriation)

- How does this impact Pacific Operators

- Termination Rates

- Country Code Blocking

- IRSF attacks in the Pacific

• Questions

WeDo Technologies User Group Malaysia 2017 January 18-19 - Grand Hyatt Kuala Lumpur Hotel

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Introduction (Me) • Ex New Zealand Police (18 years)

• Fraud and Investigations Manager – Telecom New Zealand (12 years)

• Vodafone New Zealand and Pacific Fraud Manager (5 years)

• Vodafone Group (Germany) LEA Manager (1 year)

• Vodafone Group (UK) Fraud Advisor (4 years)

• Vodafone Group (UK) Head of Fraud and Investigations (4 years)

• Fraud Consultancy (4 years) – Including PITA Fraud Advisor

• Appointed Certified Fraud Examiner in 1996

• Held Executive positions with GSMA Asia Pacific Fraud Forum, GSM Fraud Forum, FIINA, CFCA, Pacific Partners Fraud Forum, ATFRA


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Introduction (PITA) • What is PITA The Pacific Islands Telecommunications Association (PITA) is a non-profit organisation formed to represent the interests of small island nations in the Pacific Region in the field of telecommunications.

• Objectives The objective of the association is to improve, promote, enhance, facilitate and provide telecommunications services within Member and Associate Member Countries.

• Membership PITA Members are telecommunication entities in Melanesia, Micronesia, Polynesia, Australia and New Zealand. Associate Members are suppliers of telecommunication equipment and services. Telecom Regulatory bodies have a special membership category.


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Introduction (PITA)

• PITA have around 40 operator/carrier members

• Over half of these are also GSMA Operator members

• 14 Country Regulators are members under Government member category

• 127 Associate members who are suppliers of telecommunication equipment and services

• PITA have an MoU with a number of organisations including ITU, APT, CTO, PTC etc

• Were negotiating a MoU with the GSMA FF but failed


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Introduction (PITA)

• PITA coordinates meetings, seminars and workshops for its members in the region and maintains a forum for networking and business development

• Organises and facilitates training for members

• Facilitates Technical Cooperation and assistance between Developing Countries

• Operates a regional Pacific Fraud Forum who meet once or twice a year

• Have appointed a PITA Fraud Adviser to assist in the prevention, detection, investigation of fraud & revenue risk within the 23 PITA operator member countries


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Introduction (PITA) • Secretariat

- Based in Suva, Fiji

- Manager: Mr Fred Christopher

• Executive Committee

- President: Mr. Sione Veikoso Deputy CEO - Tonga Communications Corporation

- Vice President: Mr. Fredy Perman COO/Executive Vice President - FSM Communications

- Executive Member: Mr Loyley Ngira, CEO - Our Telekom, Solomon Islands

- Executive Member: Mr George Samisoni, CEO - Fiji International Telecommunications Ltd (FINTEL)


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• PITA Catchment area includes all of Micronesia, Melanesia and Polynesia, plus Australia

• Associate members (127) originate from Pacific, and also Asia, Europe, USA and Middle East

• 4 or 5 F2F meetings per year. Members meeting at PTC each January and AGM held each April. Other training events include Fraud and RA training every second August

• Travel between the Islands for training can be challenging and costly


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Tokelau

• Consists of 3 tropical Atolls with a combined land area of 10 km2

• Population of about 1400 people, exclusive Economic Zone of 319,000 km2

• 100% Solar Powered, a democratic nation located midway between NZ and Hawaii

• Has a Government Regulated Telco (TeleTok) with Country Code 690

• Uses Radio Telephone between Atolls and Samoa. Internet now on main Atoll (.tk)

• No airport. Supply ship comes from Samoa once per week

• Smallest economy of any country in the world

WeDo Technologies User Group Malaysia 2017

January 18-19 - Grand Hyatt Kuala Lumpur Hotel 9

Cook Islands

• Consists of 15 major islands spread over 2,200,000 km2 of Ocean (Fr x 4)

• Population of about 21,000 people

• Tourism provides the economic base & makes up approx. 67.5% of GDP

• Bluesky Cook Islands (was TCI) sole operator for Cook Islands. CC - +682

• 15,000 customers. Heavily reliant in termination and roaming revenues

• June 2013 an O3b satellite constellation was launched to provide internet capability to the Islands

• Huge cost to implement which was locally funded

• Completely changed lives, particularly in outer

Islands

WeDo Technologies User Group Malaysia 2017

January 18-19 - Grand Hyatt Kuala Lumpur Hotel 10

Niue Islands

• Island Country of 260 km2

• Population of about 1600 people

• One of the worlds largest Coral Islands

• Telekom Niue have 850 customers, 10,000 visitors per year, and overall, very limited revenues. Country Code +683

• Currently operate a 2G network but trying to get funding for 4G upgrade

• Free wireless Internet is provided throughout the Island


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What do these 3 Islands have in Common

• All self-governing states in free association with New Zealand

• All heavily reliant on tourism and financial aid for their economic survival

• All rely on telecommunications to support tourism and provide a lifeline to ROW

• All have refused offers by IPRN Providers to make their numbers available for revenue share purposes

• All have numbers currently advertised (Dec 2016/Jan2017) by IPRN Resellers

- Cook Islands, 940 numbers advertised on 71 IPRN Providers websites

- Niue, 282 numbers advertised on 45 IPRN Providers websites

- Tokelau, 136 numbers advertised on 41 IPRN Provider websites


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What this means

• Only 3 Carriers have termination rights in to these 3 Pacific Islands - TNZI - Telstra - Speedcast

• Cook Islands, Niue or Tokelau have no relationship with the IPRN Resellers advertising their numbers, so if they terminate correctly, they will not be paid

• The only way these IPRN Resellers can make money from these numbers is to hijack them and stop them short of the destination country

• This will often be a result of automated Least Cost Routing tools for route selection

• It is generally not the result of a deliberate desire to assist in the fraud, but just the outcome of a simple and cost-based approach to routing.

• With each additional handover the trust chain is weakened and the traffic eventually ends up with a rogue player who uses IRSF to generate illegitimate revenue.


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.


Number Hijacking and ‘Short-Stopping

Call intended for these 3 Pacific Island destinations should be routed from here to TNZI, Telstra or Speedcast who have exclusive termination rights

International Premium Rate Number (IPRN) provider

Originating Network

International Switch (Dishonest Operator)

Own Content

International Transit carrier(s) may be 2 or 3

End user

International Switch

Content Provider 1 Tech support

Content Provider 2 Satellite TV voting

Content Provider 3 Adult chat

Cook Isl

Tokelau

Niue

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How often does this happen

• Not as much as it used to

• With Cook Islands and Niue numbers, every IPRN Provider advertising these numbers was contacted over past year and warned that they were party to a criminal act if they were used

• It is suspected that most are refusing to remove all numbers as they are using them as ‘stocking fillers’

• Only incidents reported to me as PITA Fraud Advisor in past year were;

- July, UK Carrier 740 calls from hacked PBX in to 9 Niue numbers. 0 terminated in Niue

- Numerous complaints from customers receiving unwanted international calls at night

• Difficult to assess full extent of the problem as very few operators report fraud incidents. December 2016 GSMA number update only has two contributors, AT&T and TUFF.

• For 2016, GSMA only record Cook Islands (18 single calls), Tokelau (2 single calls and Niue (1 single call). Likely these were all test calls and not IRSF


Termination Rates in to the Pacific

• A common question we hear from operators who are victims of Hijacking in to the Pacific, is why don’t you lower your termination rates

• Termination rates in to most Pacific destinations are in the region of $US0.65c

• Small Pacific Islands with limited income opportunities need this revenue

• A recent test case showed;

- Called in to Niue where the termination rate is $US0.65, per minute

- Test call made through a major European mobile operator and this was billed at $US1.57 per minute

- Deduct termination rate – leaves $US0.92c margin for transit carriers

• With a 92c per minute margin, why not use the approved and trusted routing


Country Code Blocking is still a strategy being used

• Many CSP’s have simplified their Fraud Management strategy to Prevention, Detection and Disruption.

• Investigation and reporting to industry forums is not regarded as a good use of time by many

• Within PITA we have been encouraging CSP’s to remove CC blocks that have been there for years

• One Australian company had 64 Countries blocked and just kept adding to their list.

• Blocking a country may be acceptable as a temporary measure to stop an ongoing threat, but once that threat is neutralised, a more permanent strategy should be considered

WeDo Technologies User Group Malaysia 2017 January 18-19 - Grand Hyatt Kuala

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The impact of Country Code blocking on the Pacific

• It has a major impact on Pacific Island communities

• Tourism numbers drop off. If people cannot stay in touch while abroad, they will go elsewhere. Weddings, Conferences, business meetings will be moved

• For the telco, this translates to a drop-off in revenue

• Pacific Telco’s receive continuous complaints from customers advising the families abroad cannot contact them

• A relieving Doctor on one Island shortened her contract because family could not reach her

• The impact is similar when traffic is hijacked.

• Members of Parliament, Senior Police and Military and Business leaders have all complained that calls to home while abroad have terminated on an IVR somewhere

• The Pacific operator then becomes another victim of IRSF

WeDo Technologies User Group Malaysia 2017 January 18-19 - Grand Hyatt Kuala

Lumpur Hotel 18

Do the Islands also suffer from direct IRSF • There have been some significant attacks over the last year

• One involved an MVNO who suffered an IRSF attack over a 3 day period which resulted in losses of $US2.4 million

• IRSF calls made to 41 IRSF destinations from multiple Simcards

• Another involved a PITA operator member who had a number of customer mobiles stolen while they were holidaying in Barcelona

• Phones had international call forward activated with calls forwarded to a number of countries

• Calls were shown as originating from 8 countries in to the forwarded mobiles but investigation revealed that these calling CLI’s were spoofed

• There have also been a few minor attacks mainly involving Island PBX users


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Do any Pacific Operators still trade their numbers

• Yes, a few still provide ranges to IPRN Providers

• The number is significantly less that it was 15 years ago

• In the early 2000’s many of the Island CEO’s were convinced that the key to future revenues was using their numbers for audio-text and revenue share

• They were told it was completely risk free, the profits were high and their was no risk of fraud

• This was during the period when significant investment was required in new networks, so some elected to take the packages being offered.

• It was not long before the region became a very high fraud risk

• Countries started to block Pacific destinations and one European country Regulator even instructed his carriers to block the Cook Islands

• This was the catalyst for PITA to start a project to convince members to extract themselves from this business


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Do any Pacific Operators still trade their numbers

• Around 2005, the GSMA started working with PITA to create an awareness of IRSF throughout the region

• We were never successful in convincing every number range owner in the Pacific to stop selling numbers, but we got close.

• We now have 4 or 5 number range owners within the Pacific who have established relationships again with IPRN Resellers, although some of them are not PITA members

• We continue to monitor activity in this area, but we know there are IRSF attacks from time to time in the region that we do not hear about

• I would encourage any operator who suffers an IRSF attack in to the Pacific to send me the details an I will take a look at this

• It only costs you a little time, and I may be able to confirm that the calls have not terminated here allowing you to withhold payment


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What are the biggest challenges for PITA operators

• Absence of Security controls in SS7 that have been identified recently.

- The messages distributed by the GSMA and industry suppliers have been explained to the membership, but access to finance to implement improved controls is a challenge

• Access to industry intelligence

- Many PITA Operator members are finding the costs of GSMA membership prohibitive so risk losing access to the industry information available there. We are currently looking at alternatives

• Managing the costs of implementing new networks while maintaining a minimum baseline standard in respect of managing fraud and other risks

• Maintaining revenues in the face of some of the OTT products and services that are moving through the region


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THANK-YOU

QUESTIONS


Contact Details: Colin Yates – [email protected] or [email protected] Phone: +64-27 903 6784

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