A study on internet bypass fraud: national security threat

Abstract

A call via a legitimate path/route will be bypassed so that there is a revenue loss.1 Generally for making national or international calls, rates are fixed by regulators in a country or by an individual or group of operators. Bypass fraud is prevalent in countries where there is a difference in rates between the retail calling, national calling and international calling. Moreover in some countries, international gateways are monopolized by government operators. The fraudsters make use of difference in rates and ensure that there are enough profits for them and serve as the key motivating factor to invest in procuring the equipments and GSM connections for conducting a large scale Bypass fraud. In countries where the international to national terminating charge margins are low, nil or negative, the bypass fraud either does not exists or is conducted a very low scale. It is one of the latest and most severe threats to a telecom operator’s revenue. It is an unauthorized exploitation or manipulation of an operator’s network. This can happen in two ways: