TeleShield FAQs

Telephony fraud is the act of making money illegally from a communication service provider or its customers by through the use of telecommunications services. Telephony fraud can take many forms, for example, infiltrating a telephony network or using rogue operators to redirect calls/texts to international premium rate number, among others.

Phone number verification plays an essential role in the detection and prevention of telephone fraud. It includes analysis of mobile and fixed phone numbers, with the goal of identifying phone attributes that contribute to assessing the fraud risk for a number. This includes whether the number service type is suspicious or if it is part of a high risk range.

In OBR schemes fraudsters can spoof the originating number (A number)  to make it appear like it is coming from a country with a low call termination rate. This is a type of telephony by-pass fraud. TeleShield provides intelligence about a telephone number that can be used to detect suspicious originating numbers. Specifically it can

• Confirm the validity of the format of the phone number
• Identify if the number range of the number being queried has been allocated by the country regulator to a service provider
• Provide the telephone number service type
• Confirm if a number has been ported
• Identify if a number has been assigned to a subscriber.

We were approached by an international wholesale provider that had been billed tens of thousands of Euros in call surcharges because  originating numbers were identified as invalid by the terminating operator. The service provider wanted an independent analysis of the originating numbers (A numbers), many of which they suspected were spoofed. TeleShield’s analysis confirmed  that  91% of these calls were not valid numbers:

• 75% – numbers had invalid formats.
• 3% – numbers were missing valid country codes.
• 7.4%  – numbers looked  valid but the number range had not yet been assigned by regulator to a service provider.

A Wangiri scam or Wangiri fraud is a type of telephone attack that involves tricking victims into calling back a missed call from an international or premium rate number. The term “Wangiri” is Japanese for “one ring and cut,” which describes the practice of ringing the victim’s phone once and then disconnecting the call. When the victim calls back the missed call, they are connected to a high-rate international or premium rate number, and are charged exorbitant fees for the call.

TeleShield incorporates several features that can help to identify flash calls. Specifically:

• TeleShield can perform a real-time check of the Caller ID and if it’s an invalid number serving as a  spoofed OTP (One Time Password),  the call could be dropped.
• An Enhanced TeleShield query can be performed to find out if the number has been assigned to a subscriber.
• TMT also has customer-specific  consulting analysis services available to help identify number ranges being used for OTP flash calling.

We were requested by an A2P Messaging Platform provider and a Fraud Solutions provider to provide an independent review of their traffic to identify flash calls.

• For Case Study 1, 53% of the calling numbers (A numbers) were confirmed to be invalid numbers.
• For Case Study 2, 70% of the calling numbers (A numbers) were confirmed to be invalid numbers.

Our number range information is the most comprehensive and up-to-date offered.  It includes global, coverage,  including 240 countries and territories worldwide.

Yes. The Global Number Range plan is a critical component of our data infrastructure. We utilize our number range data for the processing of billions of queries monthly. Given the importance of having accurate data,  we have a dedicated team responsible for tracking of industry numbering changes, as well as the proactive update of the countries, according to strict SLAs. This includes  daily review and subsequent update of the data with operator posted IR21s and ITU changes,  as well as working with operators to clarify changes that do not appear to be correct.

The answer may be surprising to many people. We have interactions with numerous customers that have the impression that number range information is pretty static for most countries.

However,  in an average month we perform on the order of 195 updates for over 168 unique destinations. At a minimum, every month we perform updates for all our automated destinations. Sometimes countries with a high rate of change can be updated multiple times in a month. We also perform proactive reviews of each country on a scheduled basis to ensure that we pick up any changes that may have not been posted by the operators. This results in new data typically being integrated into the service every business day. This means that if you purchase a one-time download that your data could quickly become out of date.

It really depends on whether accuracy of the data is critical to your business processes. With stale data you can wind up routing voice calls or SMS messages to the wrong destination. For voice interactions this could result in being surprised by high surcharges on a bill, months after calls were placed. In the case of texts, customers can experience dropped messages.  This can have a financial impact on your costs, as well as affect your customers’ experience,  damaging the perception of your brand within the industry.

The number range information is available from  the TeleShield service on both a Query and a download basis. The standard download includes all countries, but upon request we can provide a customized bundle of countries  or a single country of data.

A PLMN (Public Land Mobile Network Identifier) is a value used to identify a mobile network. It is created using the 3 digit MCC (Mobile Country Code) and 2 or 3 digit MNC (Mobile Network Code). The MCC and MNC information is  part of the Global Number Range data. The  MCC and MNC are also part of the query responses from Velocity, Live and TeleShield services.