British businesses targeted by international phone hacking scam
An international phone hacking scam is targeting British businesses and authorities, costing the UK millions of pounds.
By Donna Bowater 8:49PM BST 24 May 2012
The complex “war-dialling” sting has already cost one local authority £30,000 in two days alone with large organisations operating multiple phone lines at risk. At least three councils are known to have been affected.
The scam, uncovered by Channel 4 News, involves hackers finding redundant phone extensions within large offices.
Many phone systems allow users to call their voicemail using a passcode and then make calls from an exchange.
Once the fraudsters have access to a voicemail passcode, they can then use the phone line to make calls to expensive international premium rate numbers (IPRNs), which are themselves rented by the thieves.
Hambleton District Council in North Yorkshire fell victim to the operation on Christmas Day after a number of initial attempts during mid-December went unnoticed.
Hundreds of calls to IPRNs were made from a centre for start-up businesses despite the council only having a skeleton staff in over the festive period.
Councillor Brian Phillips told Channel 4 News: "It came completely out of the blue. They were calls to places like Ethiopia, Bosnia and Pakistan. We were hit for £30,000.
“That is public money and has to be paid by the taxpayer. It certainly comes out of the council tax they pay, and might have an effect on other services."
The council, which believes it is contractually obliged to pay the bill, has warned other authorities to secure their systems.
The police investigation is being hindered by the international scale of the scam.
Richard Cox, a forensic phone expert, said: "This is conventional cyber crime – it just uses the telephone network instead of the internet.
“Once they've run the fraud, if they suspect that law enforcement are onto it they can make their entire tracks disappear very quickly indeed, and because of the middle men phone companies, it's not going to be at all easy to get the information that law enforcement need without getting court orders in multiple countries – something for which the resources are just not there."
