New way for hackers to make money: hack into corporate fixed-line networks to make toll calls

Hackers have found a new way to steal money from businesses, using landline telephone networks owned by them to rake in huge amounts of illicit revenue, The New York Times reports.

Hackers who understand how smart, connected devices work and know how to exploit operating system security vulnerabilities can infect mobile devices with malware to steal user data and make illegal income. Previously, hackers already had many ways to hack into user devices, such as launching complex attacks against retail chains and banks to steal personal data, launching advanced online phishing attacks, or stealing money directly from ATMs.

According to the New York Times, a construction company with only seven employees incurred a $166,000 phone bill over a weekend last March, even though no one was in the office at the time. In fact, the company got the sky-high phone bill because its landline network was hacked and then the hackers made many toll calls in Gambia, Somalia, the Maldives and other markets outside the United States.

For hackers, this seems to have become a booming "business": data shows that the total financial losses caused by fraudulent calls worldwide last year reached 4.73 billion US dollars, an increase of nearly 1 billion US dollars compared to 2011.

Industry insiders pointed out that hackers obviously rented premium phone numbers to earn more than $1 per minute, of which up to $0.24 went to the companies that rented these numbers. Currently, there are about 85 companies in the United States that provide such phone number rental services, compared with only 17 in 2009.

After renting premium numbers, hackers would break into a company's phone system and make calls to those numbers on weekends. Hackers used high-speed computers to make hundreds of calls simultaneously, driving up the cost of calls. Finally, hackers could collect payments through Western Union, MoneyGram, and wire transfers.

For companies that suffer losses, if they use the services of large operators, they can still feel more at ease, because generally they only need to pay a few thousand dollars, and most of the other costs will be absorbed by the operators themselves. But if the company uses the services of small operators, it may not be so lucky.

In 2012, 26 small businesses in Albany were hit by similar attacks, racking up phone bills of up to $200,000 each. Small businesses often neglect to protect their phone networks because they don't realize that landline networks connected to the Internet are vulnerable to attacks.

"It's a brutal thing," said Jim Dalton, founder of TransNexus, a developer of software that manages Internet calls. "If you plug a computer into the Internet, immediately someone is going to start probing it for vulnerabilities." He added: "People don't realize they're racking up six-figure debts with their calls."

It is very difficult for law enforcement agencies to catch these hackers. The New York Times said: "This criminal activity may span up to three jurisdictions. In 2011, the FBI and Philadelphia police arrested four men who used such fraudulent calls to obtain $2 million in revenue, which was transferred to a military organization in Saudi Arabia, which US officials believe was the funder of the 2008 Mumbai terrorist bombings."

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.