“Hacking” conjures dramatic scenarios involving leaked nuclear secrets, sinister scams, unscrupulous sociopaths in Guy Fawkes masks and the kind of malware, spyware and ransomware attacks that expose the sensitive data of governments and global corporations.
However a large proportion of hacking – simply defined as gaining unauthorised access to data in a system or computer – is far from glamorous and involves an international army of black-market, tech-savvy geeks relentlessly scouring the internet for any vulnerabilities to exploit for criminal purposes.
One of the items high on the shopping list of cyber-scoundrels is VoIP accounts. When global syndicates of swindlers call their unsuspecting victims, they don’t use their phone. They use yours. This is called “VoIP fraud” and is a multi-billion (yes, billion) dollar global “business” that impacts hundreds of thousands of commercial enterprises and individuals in every country on the planet.
This article briefly examines this particular niche of criminal activity as well as the ways and means whereby you can prevent yourself from becoming a victim.
Hacking is nothing less than theft. And the same laws that apply to theft of the physical kind apply to those of the digital variety: if it’s of value and hasn’t been locked securely and afforded a robust degree of protection, somebody will to try to steal it. There is no difference between someone filching thousands in hard cash out of your wallet and someone running up thousands of rands’ worth of calls on your account.
A recent article on the subject quotes an Interpol report stating “South Africa tops Africa in cyber threats and is third in the world, with 230 million threats detected in 2021.” Whilst a large slice of this illicit activity involves “impersonation fraud” – where criminals clone your identity to open bank accounts and obtain credit in your name – a significant amount includes crimes such as stealing VoIP login credentials to make bulk international calls on your dime.
Many of us are familiar with the standard phishing scam where someone calls out of the blue and says “Hi! I’m from [insert name of bank, internet service provider, credit provider, software company etc here] and we just need to verify your account.” When that happens, it’s a safe bet that they’re calling from a hacked VoIP account.
The problem, in the context of this article, is not that you might fall for the scam but that your VoIP account is being used to perpetrate it. These miscreants have illicitly obtained the usernames and passwords of an immense number of VoIP accounts from around the world. How have they – or whoever they bought them from – done so? In the vast majority of cases, it’s by hacking emails.
As the article mentioned above goes on to say, “of the 230 million cyber threats detected in SA in 2021, 219 million were related to e-mails.” So there’s our number 1 culprit: most unauthorised access to sensitive data is gained by hacking emails that haven’t been properly secured. As the Voys in-house cyber-security expert Todd Ellwood puts it: “These bad actors are essentially thieves looking for the lowest fence to jump over. So do whatever you can to ensure yours is prohibitively high.”
So, how do you build the highest fence humanly possible to deter the online outlaws casting ravenous eyes upon your VoIP account? These ten tips ought to give you a decent edge over the digital desperados.
Service providers can generally be counted upon to do their part to ensure the integrity of the accounts of their clients and customers. However, securing sensitive data is ultimately the onus of the end-user, so do everything in your power to protect it from predators.
We’re most certainly not trying to make you paranoid, but in principle it is always wise to err on the side of caution to ensure peace of mind. Since the egg is notoriously averse to being unscrambled, don’t provide anyone with the opportunity to crack your shell in the first place.
If you’d like to speak to any of the gifted Voys tech-savants with regards to security – or any other VoIP-related matter – don’t hesitate to drop us a line anytime.
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