BICS launches proactive fraud detection and prevention platform

Brussels – Belgium, 3 September 2013 – BICS, the strategic international wholesale partner to over 400 mobile operators worldwide, today announced the launch of FraudGuard, a fraud detection and prevention solution based on a crowdsourcing model, which drives shared experience and insights across the extensive BICS wholesale network. This approach creates an active community of telecoms companies which as a whole gains insights on suspicious activities reported by BICS or any of its members. The platform is delivered as a SaaS service to carriers and operators.

FraudGuard gives operators and carriers a robust means of combatting fraudulent practices in the telecoms world which can increase in effectiveness from the participatory nature of the crowd sourcing arrangement. FraudGuard is equipped with revenue analytics provided by cVidya to deliver a fully integrated solution to help carriers combat telecoms fraud. FraudGuard’s end-to-end surveillance capabilities across the network offer real-time detection and optimum coverage of a wide range of fraud types. Dedicated packages within the solution are targeted at the increasingly sophisticated fraud practices to which telecoms is subjected, including PBX hacking, IRSF, Artificial Inflation of Traffic, and Wangiri.

FraudGuard is unique in its ability to detect fraud by leveraging BICS’ size and scale, analyzing BICS’ global traffic in near real time. This approach creates an aggregated ‘helicopter view’ on fraud trends and provides FraudGuard users with insights to stop fraud before it reaches a given customer network.

Many types of fraud – including false answering supervision (FAS), international revenue share fraud (IRSF), PBX hacking and bypass fraud – are specific to the wholesale environment.

Jorn Vercamert, Head of Voice Business Management, BICS, says, “There is no longer any reason to allow fraud into the business. Once operators acknowledge and accept the gravity of the problem, they can share approaches and solutions with others. In a crowdsourcing model, a community is designed to raise everybody’s ability to win the battle against fraud.  This innovative and complete solution is based on existing and proven technology from cVidya.

“The enormous amount of voice traffic carried by the BICS wholesale network offers broad-based insights into fraudulent voice practices given the traffic patterns they create and the exceptions to routine usage that become evident in such an environment. Its high level of exposure to a wide variety of fraud and market-related risks presents more opportunity within the network to identify exceptional usage trends.

“The industry is convinced that proactivity is essential in the fight against fraud and it is no longer acceptable simply to implement measures only after fraud has hit the network.”

FraudGuard can be deployed instantly offering results from the word go and is available worldwide now.

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