Cibertec.com

Internacional Traffic Surveillance & Control

The evolution in the telecommunications industry and the increasing competition in this market have led to the rapid growth of international irregular traffic.

Over the years, Cibertec has been acquiring experience as an international traffic, antifraud solution developer. Using this experience, and focusing on the problem that the irregular international traffic causes your Telecom business, Cibertec has created the Irregular Traffic Surveillance System.

ITSS overview

The ITSS is a modular platform that detects and prevents irregular traffic patterns and facilitates the control of various types of fraud, in real time, such as those developed to bypass the long distance operators.

• Acquires, analyzes and archives telephone traffic data, gathering statistics to improve efficiency in: Fraud Control, Operation and Maintenance.
• Offers Real Time Centralized Traffic Monitoring with a modular architecture platform that gives a wide range of applications that can be managed in an independent way by the PTT departments.

Presents reports in real time, as well as historic traffic statistics, assisting in IAA reconciliation to improve accuracy and timeliness.

ITSS Benefits

Some of the benefits of the ITSS solution are:

• Stops fraud, such as call back and bypass.
• Increases your profits by controlling and decreasing the types of fraud that attack your international traffic.
• Allows Real Time call blocking in fraud cases.
• Aids in the making of business decisions through intuitive and easy to use Report Wizard tool.
• Maximizes current revenues by renegotiating your agreements with carriers based on a Refile network analysis.
• Minimizes the detection time of fraud case.
• Protects your International traffic revenues.
• Helps control what is going on in your International Traffic.
• Offers a flexible and scalable architecture that allows:
  • Adaptation for introduction of new services
  • Operational growthwith increased customers
• Includes Real Time call analysis.

ITSS Fraud Control

The System serves as an effective instrument for the control and audit of the income losses that the Telephone Company suffers as a result of their long distance activity:

• Classic Call Back, Answer Suppression and Operator Assisted Callback.
• ISR (International Simple Resale) or reselling international traffic (in or out) to the local network service providers through satellite, leased or private line facilities, data links and the Internet.
• By Pass (Outgoing Traffic to a country that is ultimately routed to another international destination).
• Third Country Refile.
• Blocking of specific Black List Numbers and Non Blocking of White List numbers.

Authorization and restriction lists, boundaries, and thresholds for usage on outgoing and incoming calls are the System�s general operation parameters to detect and prevent wireless cloning and subscription fraud activity, independent from invoicing and the switchboard systems.

Cibertec International has developed the ITSS to solve two different sets of problems that affect PSTNs worldwide: fraud that go through the International Switch (controlled by the ITSS-I system), and fraud that carry International Traffic but do not pass through the International Switch (controlled by the ITSS-Local system).

The platform is capable of managing and controlling the following types of fraud:

Fraud that use the International Switch: 

1. Traditional Call-Back
2. Answer Suppression Call-Back
3. Other Call-Back trigger methods
4. Bypass
5. Third Country Refile.
6. International Hot Lines (Not considered fraud but present collection difficulties).

Fraud that do not pass through the International Switch:

1. International Simple Resale (ISR).
2. Illegal Outgoing Traffic.

Fraud within the cellular/landline system:

By creating client profiles of the quantity of calls, total duration, and destination, the system detects fraud by means of the following thresholds:

1. Call Count Usage Thresholds
2. Single Call Duration Usage Thresholds
3. Duration of Total Calls Usage Thresholds

Black and white monitoring lists:

Black and white lists are also implemented to control specific Dialed Destination & Originating Numbers, either by blocking or allowing their access. The ITSS automatically creates a file of suspicious numbers.

ITSS Features

• Multiple open systems with distributed orientation (UNIX and Windows)
• New versions released as needed
• On-line, context-sensitive help
• Documentation support tools
• System runs unattended
• Remote administrator access, control, and operation
• Supports on-line backup
• Recovery procedures outlined
• Audit trail of occurring events
• TCP/IP for LAN and WAN networks
• Application recovery from server failure
• Back-up management
• Client/server network environment
• Printing queue management
• Installation packets (software and database in CD-ROM)
• The user workstations can operate under Window 95/98/2000pro and XP system.
• System configuration files of the E1/T1 circuit monitoring units and boards
• On line system status

The Operation Scheme

The working environment for the ITSS is a local area network, with as many supervisors and traffic servers as needed. The supervisor computers run under W2000pro workstation, while the traffic server run under Windows 2000 Server along with Microsoft SQL Server and/or ORACLE.

The supervisor is a module dedicated exclusively to control the state of each single circuit in the PCM systems. This is done by means of two basic input devices: the SS7 analysis cards and the serial multi-point connection with the PCM systems. The SS7 analysis cards are used to extract the signaling from the route, while the function of the serial multi-point connection is to gather information on events happening directly on the circuits or the PCM system as a whole.  Traditionally, the events monitored have been DTMF activity, ring-back and call progress tones, along with transmission alarms affecting the PCM system. However, the system is open to new possibilities.

By using these two information sources, the supervisor is able to reconstruct, from memory, a representation of the traffic activity within the route, and is capable of indicating in real time the state of each of the circuits and associated calls. The supervisor stores in its temporary memory call details such as: calling number, called number, any DTMF activity, etc. It keeps this information until the call is released, then the call detail record is stored in the database for later analysis.

The supervisor, as stated before, limits itself to keeping track of the state of the circuits and systems in real time, including the events happening during call progress and conversation phase, such as DTMF activity, ring-back and call progress tones. All other aspects are controlled by the concentrator, which decides what to do base on the information stored in the database and according to stored procedures designed to search for specific conditions in the signaling.

Hardware Architecture

The ITSS is a combination of Cibertec�s own hardware design and client-server HW architecture. The information is collected from the signaling (SS7, SS5, R2, R1, DSS1) and the voice channels (DTMF) of each E1/T1 that pass through the system. It is stored temporarily for pre-analysis in the Traffic Server. Later on, the information is transferred to the Report Sever, which is the final destination of the data and from where the user's PCs will connect to acquire the information.

The ITSS has the feature of real time action against irregular traffic, allowing it the capability of blocking all calls identified as fraudulent.

Software Architecture

Cibertec has developed a series of applications that control and manage the entire system. These applications can be divided into modules:

Supervisor Module: This module is composed of the Supervisor, a Software developed by Cibertec. It has the capability to collect, analyze and control the calls that are passing through the signaling links. Its client-server architecture makes it very flexible and scalable. The SS7 Message Signaling Unit Router (SS7 MSU Router) gives the user the feature to transmit and receive by TCP/IP those SS7 messages that are require to complete the full signaling information flow associated with each call.

Database Module: This module is composed by the DBCALLS database, fully designed by Cibertec. This database stores all those calls considered as fraudulent as well as the information needed to configure the system.

Management and Reporting Module: This module is composed of the Configuration Utility and the ITSS Report Wizard. With the Configuration Utility, the user has the possibility of configuring every single feature of the system. Routes, Carriers, SPCs, Blocking Numbers, etc are some of the features that you can configure and control. With the ITSS Report Wizard, the user has the capability of generating reports for fraud cases as Callback, Refile, Bypass, etc. Its user-friendly report interface gives you the possibility to obtain reports in the format that you wish, as well as sending these reports automatically to anyone interested within your company.

Cibertec solution helps you achieve the goal of protecting your current revenue sources by identifying and stopping revenue leaks. Its flexible and scalable system is designed to protect your network against those trying to steal your traffic. The Cibertec System will quickly reduce your losses and increase your revenues.

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