Fraud Detection and Management

As network operators are pushing for convergence of voice and data traffic and move towards migration of traditional telecommunications services to packet switched networks based on the Internet Protocol (IP), necessitates investigation of major issues related to service delivery, quality of service (QoS), usage based billing, charging and security. Security relating to access to services, accounting process and communications themselves becomes paramount.

Fraud management involves a deeper look into accounting with security, and plays a major role in an emerging environment where services are numerous, diverse and potentially short-lived and where users can expect a sustained level of high quality.

Though the circuit switched telephony environment is well protected against fraud due to highly restricted access, revenue loss to the operators through fraudulent activity is estimated to a tune of about 5% of the total turnover on an average. With the emerging IP-based services, possibilities of fraud maybe even higher due to the use of multi-layered, open protocols and their lack of built-in security mechanisms.

Most often, IP-based telecommunications networks will be vulnerable to the same security problems that are inherent in any IP network. As access to IP networks is largely unrestricted and IP fraud may be performed from multiple points in the network simultaneously, the successful detection and management of this activity requires constant exchange of information between several network elements, devices, and interfaces, followed by much comparison and analysis.

So prevention and early detection of fraudulent activity is an important goal for network operators. As efforts are increased to counter fraud, the cost of countermeasures becomes increasingly expensive to the point where they cost the company more than the remaining fraud. As fraud prevention is resource consuming, the use of sophisticated fraud detection techniques can assist in early detection of fraudulent activity and help reduce the effectiveness of technical frauds.

Zeteon helps network operators detect fraud early on and prevent loss of revenue.