How AI-driven company Oculeus helps telecom service providers better combat fraud

The telecommunications business isn’t only a essential side of enterprise operations, but in addition a necessary a part of on a regular basis dwelling. Telephones, laptops and different telecom gadgets function important bridges that join the world. Nonetheless, the telecom business can be uncovered to a number of ongoing threats and vulnerabilities, as malicious actors proceed to advance with extra sophistication and even innovation. The Truecaller Insights 2021 U.S. Spam and Scam Report estimates a staggering $29.8 billion was misplaced to cellphone scams in the USA in 2020 alone. 

Steven Wilson, head of Europol’s European Cybercrime Middle (EC3), mentioned in a report that financially motivated cybercriminals will all the time discover methods to take advantage of new and current enterprise processes and applied sciences. Whereas the realities are scary, consultants word in a research paper that rising applied sciences like blockchain and synthetic intelligence (AI) are highly effective instruments within the battle towards telecom fraud.

Oculeus, a Germany-based firm that gives operation assist methods (OSS) and enterprise assist methods (BSS), hopes to steer the cost on this battle with its portfolio of software-based options for telecommunications service suppliers. 

The corporate claims its options use AI and different substantial applied sciences to assist its service supplier and community operator clients higher handle and defend their enterprise and community operations with excessive ranges of accuracy and automation.

 In an unique interview with VentureBeat, Arnd Baranowski, founder and CEO at Oculeus, detailed a broader sense of how Oculeus helps its service supplier clients with its AI-powered telecom fraud prevention know-how.

An ongoing downside within the business is solely that telecom fraud is a profitable enterprise that’s comparatively straightforward to execute. Baranowski advised VentureBeat that cybercriminals know how one can exploit the inherent safety vulnerabilities of IP-based phone methods, with out organizations ever realizing their communications networks have been compromised.

“An enterprise typically solely discovers 1000’s of {dollars} of calls have been made on its phone methods with out its data when it receives the invoice on the finish of the month and nonetheless has to pay the invoice to its telco service supplier,” he defined.

A report by the Communications Fraud Management Affiliation (CFCA) estimates telecom fraud is inflicting $3.6 billion in monetary harm to companies yearly.  From monetary losses, to reputational harm and extra, the influence of telecom fraud might be devastating. The commonest type of telecom fraud, based on Baranowski, is an assault generally generally known as “PBX hacking” or “toll fraud,” which includes cybercriminals injecting costly telecommunications site visitors into the private branch exchange (PBX) and communications networks of an enterprise.

Attackers solely must compromise the safety credentials of a PBX system to execute this assault — a feat which Baranowski mentioned isn’t a problem for an skilled cybercriminal.

“Over time, telcos have developed a poor repute for his or her efforts to fight fraud. Many are identified for utilizing slow-moving processes and legacy applied sciences which can be far behind the modern applied sciences and assault strategies utilized by risk actors,” he mentioned. “Our telecom fraud safety options present telcos and their enterprise clients with real-time perception into their communications site visitors and an automatic framework to forestall false prices on their telephony networks.”

Oculeus’ telecom fraud safety resolution makes use of AI to investigate the common communications site visitors and patterns of a telecommunications service supplier and its enterprise clients.

“Our resolution regularly displays telephony methods and communications networks for exceptions to a baseline of anticipated exercise,” mentioned Baranowski. “With our AI-driven capabilities, we will establish, examine and block suspicious site visitors inside milliseconds nicely earlier than any vital monetary harm is induced.” 

Cybercriminals usually use the most recent applied sciences to execute financially damaging telecom fraud assaults, mentioned Baranowski, who additionally famous that telcos and their slow-moving telecom fraud prevention practices are sometimes two or three steps behind the superior, fast-moving strategies utilized by perpetrators of telecom fraud.

“Our modern AI-enabled telecom fraud prevention resolution helps telcos modernize their battle towards telecom fraud and considerably shut the gaps towards the actions of fraudsters,” mentioned Baranowski.

Whereas there are a number of strategies, totally different approaches and options to stopping telecom fraud — resembling site visitors analysis-based, state of affairs/rules-based and device-based options — Baranowski mentioned Oculeus’ aggressive differentiator is that it incorporates all of those approaches in a single platform.

“We make the most of an clever mixture of AI and anomaly detection to investigate communications site visitors patterns — and any suspicious site visitors that’s confirmed to be fraudulent is blocked immediately,” he mentioned.

Baranowski mentioned Oculeus trains its AI fashions to allow its algorithms to outline particular outcomes that rapidly distinguish between reliable and fraudulent site visitors. 

Whereas Baranowski mentioned that automation is important in trendy cybersecurity endeavors, he cautioned that it’s important for organizations to all the time have management over what they automate. He mentioned organizations should use automation on high of methods that may be managed, understood, maintained, monitored and managed.

Market alternative created by digital transformation

For a few years, Oculeus’ predominant product has been a telecommunications wholesale administration system, which was initially developed for voice providers and likewise helps SMS providers as we speak. 

In accordance with Baranowski, these options assist telcos to maintain their voice and messaging enterprise strains not solely related, but in addition worthwhile. The corporate has near-term strategic plans to increase this resolution to incorporate assist for retail voice and cellular digital community operator (MVNO) providers.

With the pandemic fast-tracking digital transformation, Baranowski mentioned extra enterprise and commerce is being performed on-line than ever earlier than. He famous that this has considerably widened the assault floor for cybercrime, particularly telecom fraud. 

This has created a significant market alternative for Oculeus to offer telcos the instruments and framework they should successfully fight fraud and higher defend the communications networks of their clients.

The corporate can even increase the usage of AI, particularly for its telecom fraud safety resolution, with a view to adapt to new threats and supply extra anti-fraud countermeasures with quicker response charges.

Oculeus was based in 2004 and has been absolutely self-financed since its inception. The corporate presently claims to have upwards of 120 telecommunications service supplier clients all over the world. Oculeus’ clients embrace Swisscom and Telekom Austria, amongst others. The corporate’s present headcount is 26 and it’s trying to steadily improve that quantity this 12 months.