Business Opportunities Weblog

April 19, 2008 by Angela Shupe | 1 Comment

Smart Company:

If criminals hack into your phone system, the first you may hear of it is when the massively inflated phone bill lands on your desk.

At least two Melbourne companies have had their phone systems hacked into by criminals in recent weeks.

The Camberwell Electrics Superstore and Swinburne University have both been hit with collective phone bills of more than $100,000 of overseas calls.

A Swinburne University spokeswoman said the university knew nothing of the scams until it received an $80,000 phone bill.

Camberwell Electrics’ accountant Chris Koh told The Age newspaper the company was alerted when Telstra called it to ask why they had made $20,000 in overseas calls in less than two weeks.

At least one Australian company every day falls victim to telephone hackers, who rack up an average bill of $78,000, David Stevens, managing director of Telecoms Security told the newspaper.

Australian Federal Police are reportedly working with their international counterparts to stop the scams, which are allegedly being carried out by overseas manufacturers of international phone cards commonly used by students and tourists to make cheap calls.

The phone card manufacturer hacks into the private automatic branch exchange (PABX), and card user’s calls are charged to the victim.

Australian businesses need to keep an extra eye on their phone bills right now. A certain overseas phone card company is causing a bit of the trouble but the police are working to stop it.

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Tags: Australia, Small Biz