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Fraud and risk management
NETWORK SECURITY
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Is the growth in online working an opportunity for fraudsters?
The fast-changing threat landscape The Covid -19 pandemic has certainly given more opportunities to fraudsters to exploit vulnerabilities in telecom services. However, as Kusum Liyanage of Cable & Wireless Seychelles pointed out to Ron Murphy, fraud has been evolving for a long time and become more sophisticated as the volume of telecommunications traffic has steadily increased.
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ELECOM FRAUD RISK is becoming greater every day. Hence recent events like Telecom Fraud & Risk Management Forum Africa. This event seeks to discover up-to-date methods and strategies to prevent fraud attacks and minimise revenue leakages. We asked one of the speakers at the event, Kusum Liyanage, head of revenue assurance and fraud management (RAFM) at Cable & Wireless Seychelles, to tell us more, starting with a look at the effect of Covid-19. Of course with that outbreak, activities including work, learning and entertainment increasingly took place online, meaning that telecoms infrastructure experienced much higher usage. “The uncertainty and disruption caused by Covid-19 undoubtedly created a fertile ground for fraudsters and telecom fraud and security threats significantly increased in the recent past,” she explained. It seems that as business models are challenged by the pandemic, the top management focus has been more on
20 Communications Africa Issue 2 2022
operational measures than compliance and fighting fraud. You can add to that the fact that illness among the workforce and absences from work have become an issue in terms of capacity and finding replacements to do the fraud prevention work. Thus ongoing investigations are halted due to lack of resources and focus.
The more you know and the more precautions you take, the safer you will be. “Furthermore,” said Liyanage, “the temporary transfer of staff into operations may leave prevention functions understaffed. With the pandemic, onboarding of customers and business partners is fast-tracked. There is also the pressure of bringing products very quickly to the market – all potentially leaving doors open for fraudsters.” Not only that but in the current situation, every company is looking for savings; this may
mean cutting jobs or reducing payments to employees. “For some employees this may create an incentive to commit internal fraud or support fraudsters to gain financial benefits,” Liyanage explained. Of course the pandemic is not over yet, and the Russia-Ukraine conflict is now adding new uncertainties to the world. “Telcos need to be constantly vigilant and put in place the fraud prevention mechanisms to protect their customers, network infrastructure and overall business sustainability,” she said. And meanwhile telecommunications marches on. The roll-out of 5G in Africa, for example, will enable unprecedented levels of connectivity. However, despite the growth and excitement over 5G and other technology rollouts in Africa, telcos readiness for appropriate risk management strategies is still questionable. Some of the security worries result from the 5G network itself, while others involve the devices connecting to 5G. But both aspects put consumers, governments and businesses at risk. For example, one 5G-enabled concept is
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