January 2014

Why Deep Packet Inspection Analysis is Essential for Detecting IP Fraud

by Dror Eshet

As telcos transition to more IP services, it’s revolutionizing the fraud management practice.

Look at it from the criminal’s point of view. Up to now, fraudsters have been making money on relatively traditional and expensive services like international or long distance voice calls. Yet today, voice calls are super cheap, so how are they going to make money?

The fraudster’s strategy is to switch horses: they are now highly focused on fraud opportunities around Data and IP services. Trouble is: Traditionally these areas are a relative blind spot for fraud managers.

Sure, fraud departments have always monitored Data transactions and traffic, but the analysis point was traffic volume — who’s using lots of data or uploading information more often. Now while volumetric data is important, it’s just not enough in today’s world.

So what can fraud managers do? Well, first and foremost, I think fraud managers need to rethink their existing controls, map and reassess the “new environment” and where the exposure areas are. This will probably require updating internal policies and procedures, training staff, and creating new and efficient controls on top of the traditional ones.

Deep Packet Inspection meets the IP Fraud Threat

At cVidya, we feel the best way to handle the growing Data fraud threat is to vastly increase the number and variety of data sources you can analyze. That’s why we’re putting a big emphasis now on data sources that weren‘t available in the past — unconventional data sources such as social media and DPI (deep packet inspection).

DPI is a fancy word, but it simply means looking at the content of Data traffic, not just the headers or the volume. We’re now busy integrating DPI into our intelligent detection engines that analyze the data.

The idea is to leverage the same DPI data that operators collect for service assurance, engineering, and network planning. We take that data and using our sophisticated fraud detection engines that take in any data source, then find the suspicious or abnormal things and build alerts and cases around that.

Market Changes Drive Fraud Management Practices

You don‘t need to look far to notice how mobile broadband is changing things massively. Go to the website of any mobile operator in the world: five years ago you would see ads promoting low cost international calls. But today you see ads touting things like “unlimited data plan” and “speak as long as you like”, and “get 5 Gigabytes” for a fixed price.

It’s pretty clear that mobile operators are aggressively pushing for customers to consume more data through: attractive data plans, on-demand offers — even selling connected tablets with a SIM card inside to encourage mobile data consumption and reduce the WiFi connection as much as possible.

To understand the impact of these trends, you need to look at the business itself and understand where you are exposed.

Monitoring the Practice of Tethering

One particular interesting case here is “tethering” — basically connecting multiple devices to the web through one internet access point. Now in many shared plans, tethering is acceptable because you are connecting through someone in your family, for instance. The issue mobile operators face is when use Tethering for commercial use (trying to make money out of it) and actually reduce the potential revenues of the operator.

Now in most corners of the world, monitoring for tethering is not that important so far. But I can tell you that operators in the States like Verizon and AT&T have launched dedicated packages for tethering that are much more expensive than normal packages, so it’s likely to become a worldwide trend.

People are not quite sure how to classify tethering. It’s not a classic fraud case like IPRS. But it’s certainly an abuse of the wireless contract that could prove very costly for an operator. Most fraud management systems out there don‘t track tethering abuse: either they can’t get at the DPI data to find it or the fraud team is not fully aware of the issue.

Illegal Mobile Access

Another emerging area of risk is illegal mobile access. In certain markets of Latin America and Europe, the operator created bundled data plans that offer premium access to certain websites. For example, one bundle might provide high quality, unlimited Facebook access for $10 a month. Or for $15, you get access to Twitter, Facebook, and emails.

OK now, suppose the operator wants to charge a premium fee for YouTube access. Well, right there is an attractive incentive for abusers to bypass the restrictions and gain access to YouTube via proxy servers that hide the user’s IP address.

Fortunately though, with DPI we can manage this abuse: even though the user’s identity is masked at the originating point, you can spot any and all the web traffic that gets to YouTube via a proxy server.

So I think you can see where things are headed. More and more, operators will make deals with OTT (Over the Top) application providers to offer premium services. Soon it will become essential to monitor and enforce these premium access policies.

Conclusion

Bottom line, the dramatic expansion of Data services brings a totally new ball game. Looking through the fraud management binoculars, we need new methods of fraud detection. And operators who don‘t move toward DPI data analysis will be more and more at risk as the consumption of Data services keeps on growing exponentially.

Dror Eshet

Mr. Dror Eshet is a leading expert in telecom fraud with more than 15 years of experience in fraud detection and prevention at various large enterprises.

Mr. Eshet joined cVidya in 2008 as its global fraud prevention consultant. In 2012, he was promoted and became the company’s FraudView product manager. In this capacity, he was responsible for the company’s flagship FraudView product suite.

In January 2016, cVidya was acquired by Amdocs, a leading provider of customer experience, OSS/BSS solutions for telecom and since then, Mr. Eshet serves as the fraud solutions product manager in Amdocs’s Revenue Guard practice.

During 2007 and 2008, Mr. Eshet took on the role of fraud prevention manager at MIRS Communications Ltd., a provider of cellular communication services (currently part of HOT Telecommunication Systems Ltd. (TASE:HOT), a leading provider of cable television, Internet, broadband and telecom services in Israel).

Before joining MIRS, Mr. Eshet served nine years as a fraud prevention manager at Bezeq International a part of Bezeq (TASE: BEZQ), Israel’s largest and leading telecom group, offering full range of telecom services.

Mr. Eshet holds a BA in Business Administration. Contact Dror via

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Telecom Blocking & Tackling: Executing the Fundamentals of the Order-to-Bill Process — interview with Ron Angner — Just as football teams need to be good at the basics of blocking and tackling, telecoms need to excel at their own fundamental skillset: the order-to-cash process. In this article, a leading consulting firm explains its methodology for taking operators on the path towards order-to-cash excellence. Issues discussed include: provisioning intervals; standardization and simplicity; the transition from legacy to improved process; and the major role that industry metrics play.
Wireline Act IV, Scene II: Packaging Network & SaaS Services Together to Serve SMBs — by John Frame — As revenue from telephony services has steadily declined, fixed network operators have scrambled to support VoIP, enhanced IP services, and now cloud applications. This shift has also brought challenges to the provisioning software vendors who support the operators. In this interview, a leading supplier explains how it’s transforming from plain ol‘ OSS software provider to packager of on-net and SaaS solutions from an array of third party cloud providers.
Telecom Merger Juggling Act: How to Convert the Back Office and Keep Customers and Investors Happy at the Same Time — interview with Curtis Mills — Billing and OSS conversions as the result of a merger are a risky activity as evidenced by famous cases at Fairpoint and Hawaiian Telcom. This article offers advice on how to head off problems by monitoring key operations checkpoints, asking the right questions, and leading with a proven conversion methodology.
Is Order Management a Provisioning System or Your Best Salesperson? — by John Konczal — Order management as a differentiator is a very new concept to many CSP people, but it’s become a very real sales booster in many industries. Using electronics retailer BestBuy as an example, the article points to several innovations that can — and are — being applied by CSPs today. The article concludes with 8 key questions an operator should ask to measure advanced order management progress.
NEC Takes the Telecom Cloud from PowerPoint to Live Customers — interview with Shinya Kukita — In the cloud computing world, it’s a long road from technology success to telecom busness opportunity. But this story about how NEC and Telefonica are partnering to offer cloud services to small and medium enterprises shows the experience of early cloud adoption. Issues discussed in the article include: customer types, cloud application varieties, geographic region acceptance, and selling challenges.
Billing As Enabler for the Next Killer Business Model — interview with Scott Swartz — Facebook, cloud services, and Google Ads are examples of innovative business models that demand unique or non-standard billing techniques. The article shows how flexible, change-on-the-fly, and metadata-driven billing architectures are enabling CSPs to offer truly ground breaking services.
Real-Time Provisioning of SIM Cards: A Boon to GSM Operators — interview with Simo Isomaki — Software-controlled SIM card configuration is revolutionizing the activation of GSM phones. The article explains how dynamic SIM management decouples the selection of numbers/services and delivers new opportunities to market during the customer acquisition and intial provisoining phase.
A Cynic Converted: IN/Prepaid Platforms Are Now Pretty Cool — interview with Grant Lenahan — Service delivery platforms born in the IN era are often painted as inflexible and expensive to maintain. Learn how modern SDPs with protocol mediation, high availability, and flexible Service Creation Environments are delivering value for operators such as Brazil’s Oi.
Achieving Revenue Maximization in the Telecom Contact Center — interview with Robert Lamb — Optimizing the contact center offers one of the greatest returns on investment for a CSP. The director of AT&T’s contact center services business explains how telecoms can strike an “artful balance” between contact center investment and cost savings. The discussion draws from AT&T’s consulting with world class customers like Ford, Dell, Discover Financial, DISH Network, and General Motors.
Mobile Broadband: The Customer Service Assurance Challenge — interview with Michele Campriani — iPhone and Android traffic is surging but operators struggle with network congestion and dropping ARPUs. The answer? Direct resources and service quality measures to ensure VIPs are indeed getting the quality they expect. Using real-life examples that cut to the chase of technical complexities, this article explains the chief causes of service quality degradation and describes efficient ways to deal with the problem.
Telco-in-a-Box: Are Telecoms Back in the B/OSS Business? — interview with Jim Dunlap — Most telecoms have long since folded their merchant B/OSS software/services businesses. But now Cycle30, a subsidiary of Alaskan operator GCI, is offering a order-to-cash managed service for other operators and utilities. The article discusses the company’s unique business model and contrasts it with billing service bureau and licensed software approaches.
Bricks, Mortar & Well-Trained Reps Make a Comeback in Customer Management — interview with Scott Kohlman — Greater industry competition, service complexity, and employee turnover have raised the bar in the customer support. Indeed, complex services are putting an emphasis on quality care interactions in the store, on the web, and through the call center. In this article you’ll learn about innovations in CRM, multi-tabbed agent portals, call center agent training, customer treatment philosophies, and the impact of self-service.
21st Century Order Management: The Cross-Channel Sales Conversation — by John Konczal — Selling a mobile service is generally not a one-and-done transaction. It often involves several interactions — across the web, call center, store, and even kiosks. This article explains the power of a “cross-channel hub” which sits above all sales channels, interacts with them all, and allows a CSP to keep the sales conversation moving forward seamlessly.
Building a B/OSS Business Through Common Sense Customer Service — by David West — Delivering customer service excellence doesn‘t require mastering some secret technique. The premise of this article is that plain dealing with customers and employees is all that’s needed for a winning formula. The argument is spelling out in a simple 4 step methodology along with some practical examples.