Phone networks' insecurity ignored

Almost half of businesses are unaware of what telephony fraud is or take no measures to protect against it, despite 40% acknowledging that their telephony network has faced security threats in the last year. Remarkably, only 17% monitored their voice network constantly, yet 40% of businesses admitted to having suffered financially because of this lack of security.

The independent survey commissioned by Damovo UK, a provider of technology and service solutions in the enterprise arena, revealed that although 61% of respondents in organisations with over 400 employees had incurred losses above £5,000 because of telephony fraud (with 35% incurring losses in excess of £10,000), 46% had not had a telephony audit in the past 18 months.

“The research shows that there is a distinct lack of awareness within corporations of the need to protect the voice network. Hacking is not just an activity limited to data networks and PCs, organised criminal units constantly look for vulnerabilities in voice networks to exploit and profit from. Often once the system is hacked the speed at which costs are incurred is rapid; this can easily happen over a single weekend,” said Nick Dean, Managing Director of Damovo UK.

“In an increasingly competitive environment businesses cannot afford to be complacent. As well as financial losses, security breaches which could undermine intellectual property are very real possibilities if the same attention that is given to the data network is not given to voice” he said. 43% of respondents with over 600 employees said that they had suffered either financial or intellectual property losses as a result of telephony fraud.