Abhijeet Singh, Senior Product Manager, Telesign Session is divided into 3 parts, based on use cases: Registration fraud. Identifying fake users, preventing bulk account creation, etc. ATO (Account TakeOver). Preventing ATO fraud through phone hijacking attacks like SIM Swap, Porting attacks, call forwarding, etc. IRSF (International Revenue Sharing Fraud) attacks on enterprises. Registration to SIP trunking.

1. ABHIJEET SINGH
Senior Product Manager

2. 2FA Pioneer
17 Patents Granted
2005
+ Communications
Services
CPaaS Provider
2016
+ Phone Data
Intelligence
Gartner Magic Quadrant
Authentication Leader
2010
+ BICS acquires
TeleSign
End-to-End Communications Platform
700+ direct connections to carriers
Expanded data reservoir
2017 & beyond

3. Higher Quality
700+
direct F/MNO
connections
Higher Coverage
230+ countries
covering 97% of world
population
Better
Intelligence
Beyond-the-horizon
view of fraud incidents
Continuous
Improvement
Access to both DSPs and
Telco Data – Voice,
Messaging & Signaling

4. What can a phone number
tell you about your users?
Our APIs deliver actionable
insights that enhance and
protect every stage of the
customer experience.
Securely onboard new
users and protect account
access with two-factor
authentication APIs built to
support the largest web
properties in the world.
Deliver rich and reliable customer
experiences with SMS and Voice
interactions sent through a
platform with direct carrier
connections, global carrier data
and telecom fraud expertise.

6. Fake Accounts
Account Takeover
IRSF
and how TeleSign addresses them for it’s customers

7. Using sophisticated Bots, SIM farming,
Burner/VoIP number use etc. billions of fake
accounts are created on social media, email
and online businesses
Spamming, phishing, spread fake news, post
fake reviews, impersonation, create logins on
online businesses, increase number of
followers, non competitive behavior, etc.
20%+
Online
accounts are
fake
40%+
Online
reviews are
fake
6.2
BILLION
Fake accounts
removed by Facebook
in 1.5 years
(2.5x legitimate user
accounts)
2.4x
Fake business
accounts vs.
legitimate
business
accounts
50%
Users provide
false data at
onboarding

8. © 2019 TeleSign 8
Pyramid schemes have been created around it
☺

10. *BREACH LEVEL INDEX 2013 TILL 14-NOV-2019
14,717,618,286 Records*
Only 4% of breaches were “Secure Breaches”
These are just numbers until it hits you.
Here’s my story….
More than twice the
world’s population!

11. Offered great success. But fraudsters are catching up….

12. © 2019 TeleSign 12
Biggest fraud plaguing the telecom industry.
IRSF is caused by the artificial inflation of traffic
to fraudulent numbers in the world.
Also powers Money Laundering & Terrorism
Financing
USD 10.1 Billion
Loss per year to “Traditional Telecom Industry”
but reported to be linked to
30% international
fraud traffic
An increase of 60% a year
AT TRAFFIC SOURCE
Subscription Fraud
Missed Calls (Wangiri)
Opening Credit Abuse
PBX/iPBX Hack
Payment Method Fraud
Account Takeover
Network (SBCs etc.) Hack
Non payment intent
(Postpaid accounts)
Theft
Malware
AT DESTINATION
Premium Numbers (IPRS)
Range Hijacking
Arbitrage Exploitation
High Cost Numbers
Cherry Picking
Unallocated/Unknown
/Closed RangeImpact on Modern Communication Platforms
is largely unknown…

13. •
•
•
•
© 2019 TeleSign 13
APIAPI

14. © 2019 TeleSign 14
And so should be it’s protection…
I am not….
asingh@telesign.com
abhi_rock4
@candidabhijeet
bOuLeVaRd_84
I am….
Abhijeet Singh
Who is 3x years old..
Can be contacted at +32 476 39
XXXX
Owns a Huawei phone
Hails from India, lives in Brussels
Heavy user of all main social
media platforms
Does a LOT of online shopping
Is a foodie and tech enthusiast
Doesn’t own a digital wallet, yet…
is more than username & password

15. Onboarding
Login
Account Recovery
Marketplace
Interactions
Payments
Customer Support
At TeleSign Phone Number is the center of the everything

16. 16
Score Risk Level Recommendation Reason Code
801-1000 High Block XXX, YYY
601-800 Medium-high Block XXX, YYY
401-600 Medium Flag XXX, YYY
201-400 Medium-low Allow XXX, YYY
0-200 Low Allow XXX, YYY
N/A Neutral N/A XXX, YYY
© 2019 TeleSign
Phone Number Traffic
Patterns & Usage Velocity
Status of Phone
and updates
Subscriber’s
contact details
Phone Type,
Telecom Carrier,
Account and
Device ID
Customer-
Provided
Data Inputs:
IP Address, Email
Address, Account
ID, Device ID, etc.
History of
Fraud –
Global Data
Consortium
Knowledge
Engineering
Customized
Machine
Learning
models
VoIP
Detection
Ad-hoc phone attributes check
Identify a phone number reputation score
Account Integrity Communication
Lead Registration Identity Credit
Transaction

17. Strong co-relation with online frauds
No of outgoing/incoming
calls/messages
Velocity
Diversity of called numbers, countries, operators
Diversity of receiving numbers, countries, operators
Duration of calls
Tenure of numbers
Length of messages
No of countries roamed
Mobile data usage
Failed call attempts
Failed messages
Failed signaling
Type of carriers
- Tier 1,2,3,4 VOIP
Risky destinations
Premium calls
Spam content
Calling Number
Called Number Roaming Number
Sender SMS Receiver SMS
Customer Supplier
Origination
Country/Operator
Destination
Country/Operator
Trillions of Global
communication
transactions
Tokenized Privacy
Compliant
Platform
Access to largest
crowdsourced fraud
consortium database

18. Velocity histogram (bar = day) Velocity histogram (bar = hour) Call duration histogram (bar = sec)
Application
Traffic
Robocalls

19. 19
Legitimate traffic Numbers used for A2P
use cases
Numbers used for
Robocalling
© 2019 TeleSign
Call duration distributions on sample of subscribers

20. © 2019 TeleSign 20
node = phone number; edge = transaction(s); direction = from A to B number;
node color = in (blue) vs out (red) degree (i.e. number of distinct B vs A neighboring nodes);
node size = total degree (total number of neighbors);
number correlated to the edge = velocity; edge thickness = call duration.
Legitimate Graph Components

21. Score
+ PhoneID
+ Verify
+ Communications
User Initiates Registration with a
Phone Number
Check
Phone
Number
Risk Score
High Risk
(Reason(s))
Low Risk
Trusted
Check
Phone
Number
Type &
Status
Unknown
Valid &
Active
VoIP,
Fixed line,
Deactive etc.
New Number
Check for
Device
Change
Number associated
with another account
Check for
SIM Swap &
Porting
History
Check for Call
Forward
User enters correct PIN
into site/app
Allow the
registration
SMS or Voice
message
containing
OTP PIN
sent to A#
No Call Forward
present
Block Registration OR
Manual/Other Verification
Notify other account
Perform
KYC
No
SIM Recently
changed
No recent
change
Match
No
Match
Check for
Phone#
Recycle
Yes, Recent
Notify account
for number
change
Yes, Recent
*This is a sample use case and flow. Based on customer’s
decision making process and use case, there could be many
other flows involving various different data points.

22. Score
Platform receives a call request from
Customer
A# → B#
Block Call Attempt
A# B#
Check for B#
Risk Score
Continue to
Validate A#
& B# Calling
Behavior
with Score
High Risk
(Reason)
Low Risk
Trusted
Unknown
Check for A#
Risk Score
High Risk
(Reason)
Low Risk
Trusted
Unknown
Allow Call(s) to Connect
Inform customer
Or Block Account
Still Low Risk
Trusted
Unknown
Turned High Risk
(Reason)
*This is a sample use case and flow. Based on customer’s
decision making process and use case, there could be
many other flows involving various different data points.

23. Marketing Registration Login Transactions Engagement
Providing Marketing
Channel to a large Social
Application from China
Messaging Invites
SMS OTP based
verification for the
largest software
enterprise in North
America
Verification Messages
SMS based login channel
for a large online portal
in North America
Login Authentication
SMS
Notification SMS
messages for on of the
largest eCommerce in
LATAM
Transaction Notifications
Anonymous Voice
communications for a
large food delivery app in
North America
Anonymous
Communication
Lead cleansing &
monitoring for a large
CRM company in Europe
Lead Cleansing
Preventing bulk/fake
account creation for one
of the largest
marketplaces globally
Promo Abuse Prevention
Preventing account take
over through sim swap
for a large lending
company in US
Account Take Over/Sim
Swap Prevention
Enabling regulation
through KYC checks
(Identity verifications) for
a large marketplace in
China
KYC – Know You Customer
Providing Identity checks
& ATO checks for a voice
based fraud prevention
company in North
America
Inbound Call Centre Fraud
Enabling Communication
Enabling Trust

24. asingh@telesign.com
@TeleSign