URGENT-PHONE FRAUD!!!!!

[Charles Davis]

Our voice mail system was hacked over the weekend with some low life scumbag making calls to Saudi Arabia, etc. This scum can only make their living by stealing from others.

 

According to our service provider, this is rampant accross the US now.

 

The vulnerability appears to take advantage of the call forwarding features in your voice mail.

 

Run, don't walk, and ensure your passwords to your voice mail are changed, and are not simple, obvious number (ex: 1234, etc).

 

This is a major serious problem, do not take it lightly!!!!!!!!!!

[Ripper3785]

Charles,

 

If outcalling is disabled, this can't work right? I was just playing with our system after I read your message and wasn't able to make an outbound call from the VM system..

[Charles Davis]

That's correct, I believe. Calling through is the default on many systems.

[Ripper3785]

Kinda makes you think when they're calling saudi arabia, huh? Your VM system could have provided a communication line for a terrorist... Or maybe not...

[Tony]

I wondered why I.T. came around and made sure all the Phone procedures were in place.

although they caught my message

"Hello"................"You have reached

The Toolroom, either its Sunday,

are boom boxes are on 10,

Or Joe is fighting with his wife again"

 

[ 10-07-2003, 09:58 AM: Message edited by: Tony ]

[Polite Luther]

Maybe you should call the authorities and have them track the number that called yours.

 

You never know who's calling Saudi Arabia and why...

[Charles Davis]

Yes, the FBI is investigating.

 

I've learned a lot about this the last few days. This is now a rampant fraud, with some people involved who have inside knowledge of the phone system vulnerabilities.

 

Luckily our provider (Telepacific) is awesome, and caught the fraud right away. If you have AT&T, you usually have in your contract that if you get hacked, you are responsible.

 

Less responsive company's may take up to 30 days to catch the fraud, and you could easily get stuck with at 40K phone bill with NO recourse!!!

 

Again, you should alert mgt to this, and have your equipment service provider help you snoop out and close any loopholes in your system.

[Müřlıń®]

quote:

---

40K phone bill with NO recourse!!!

---

*****GULP******

 

 

Kinda scary.....thanks Charles for the heads up

 

******tells wife to keep an eye on phone bill*****

 

 

Murlin

[Charles Davis]

This is how serious it is... we are changing our entire phone system to one that cannot be programmed remotely, and which is un-hackable.

 

I figure the cost is less than paying for a weekend of calls to Bangladesh.

 

Don't ignore this problem or you'll be sorry.....

[Rick Damiani]

quote:

---

If outcalling is disabled, this can't work right? I was just playing with our system after I read your message and wasn't able to make an outbound call from the VM system..

---

One variant of this kind of hacking changes the message the voicemail system uses to greet callers with a person saying 'Yes'. Some phone companies use a voice-recognition system to authenticate third-party-billed calls, and those systems are generally not very sophisticated.

 

Short version: you are vunrible to this kind of fraud if your phone system answers with a recorded message.

[Charles Davis]

Rick,

 

Yes. Good point.

 

If you have a system that can be programmed remotely, you are vulnerable. They hacked a six digit password overnight, so these guys are pretty sophisticated low life scum sucking pigs.

[Rekd™]

Six digit password overnite? Wow. Do they have to dial in every 3 tries or something if they don't get it right?

 

To use brute force to crack a 6 digit password of only numbers would take only a few seconds on a computer. But to do it dialing in every few tries would likely take days.

 

'Rekd

 

[ 10-08-2003, 10:27 PM: Message edited by: Rekd ]

[gcode]

Any chance it was an angry ex-employee?

A password like that has to be worth $$ if you know the right people.

[Charles Davis]

No, I actually interrupted a hack attempt.

 

It was a middle eastern sounding guy with poor english; though I think he got my drift about the profession of his mother, the type of animals his father is fond of, and the pedigree of hisself.

 

[ 10-08-2003, 10:56 PM: Message edited by: Charles Davis ]

[crazy^millman]

Nope rekd they got them auto dialers they can dail 100,000 time in a freaking hour how all them TV shows your suppose to call in on get so many calls.

 

Crazy Millman

 

Oh yeah thanks for the tip Charles I found out our is so old that they couldnt get those feature to work so they just didnt ever turn them on is all.

 

[ 10-09-2003, 01:18 AM: Message edited by: Millman^Crazy ]