TDoS VoIP fraud attacks on emergency services

The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) is reporting a recent uptick in Telephony Denial of Services (TDoS) fraud. Perpetrators are suspected of using hacked VoIP automated dialing programs to overwhelm the phone lines of their victims, harassing them with thousands of calls.

Many of these attacks have targeted emergency service agencies, preventing them from receiving and responding to legitimate emergency calls.

In other cases, fraudsters are using these tactics to attack individuals, using VoIP to spoof the police department’s telephone number and claiming there is a warrant issued for the victim’s arrest for failure to pay off a loan. Fraudsters then place repeated calls to the local police department, spoofing the victim’ telephone number, leading to actual police response at the victim’s home.

Keep your VoIP network from being used to make unauthorized and fraudulent phone calls with VoIP fraud detection software. SDReporter and NexOSS from TransNexus both detect unusual spikes in calls that could indicate a TDoS attack. Learn more here.