Fergie's Tech Blog

Phone Systems Hackers Hit Australian Businesses

Andrea Petrie and Greg Roberts writes on TheAge.com au:

At least one Australian company every day falls victim to telephone hackers, who rack up an average bill of $78,000, a national telephone security expert said yesterday.

But David Stevens, managing director of Telecoms Security, said most businesses did not realise how easy it was until too late.

Australian Federal Police last night confirmed they were working with their international counterparts to stop hackers hitting Australian businesses, after it was revealed that criminals had penetrated the phone systems of at least two Melbourne companies in recent weeks.

The scam is allegedly being carried out by overseas manufacturers of international phone cards commonly used by students and tourists to make cheap calls.

The card manufacturers are believed to then hack into unsuspecting company's phone systems, known as a private automatic branch exchange (PABX), so the calls made by card users get charged to unsuspecting victims of the scam.

posted by Fergie @ 4/17/2008 03:06:00 PM