[cisco-voip] Fraud calls to Cuba - Please read

[Ahmed Elnagar]

Wow...exaclty the same problem I had...but with PRI...I have a site in Egypt that the user called us one day and informed that he has a bill from the Teleco for 100,000$ for a period of 3 months and they never produce this amount of calls...all calls were for random numbers and the call never exceeded 1 minute and these random numbers happen to be starting with 00 which is the internationl prefix here in Egypt.
 
After long nights of troubleshootting...I found that the gateway was configured to register SIP phones from the internet and I found an IP address from Mexico city that is trying this random calls so frequent, the strange thing is that the gateway was accepting these calls and route it to H323 side which relay the call to the PRI.
 
I did the following to ensure that it will not happen again...removed SIP at all from the gateway...converted the gateway to MGCP so that every call that will pass the gateway will need signalling from Callmanager and will leave a record in the CDR. But the strange thing the problem contiuned...
 
During troubleshooting we noticed something strange...alot of incoming calls coming to the PRI from a certain local number...and it was 3 AM in the morning we called this number and he told us that he know no one in this site and he has a problem that he got high invoices from the Teleco too...so we come up with this conculsion...seems that the CO. equipments has some problems and it is generating calls on behalf of the user to random numbers...a strange thing I know but till now this company still going to discussions with the teleco to solve this problem.
 
I suggest to do the followin...try to review CDR files and have a detailed bill from your Teleco and try to compare these calls with the CDR calls maybe this would help you...also try to activate some debugs and show commands "there is some tools that can automate show command every 5 mins or so" to know exactly when these calls happen and what is the source of it.
 
Good luck with this strange issue.
Thanks,Ahmed Elnagar

From: cenders at homesbyavi.comTo: cisco-voip at puck.nether.netDate: Wed, 7 Jan 2009 20:26:56 -0700Subject: [cisco-voip] Fraud calls to Cuba - Please read



Hello List,
 
I’ve got a situation with 2 remote sites.  Over the course of several days in late November, somehow the analog POTS line in the site (which we use for SRST backup) proceeded to make approx 4,940 calls to Cuba.  There wasn’t really a pattern to the calls.  It started with a couple of repeated calls to the same number and from that point, the dialed number changed (not dialed in any sort of sequential pattern either).  Calls varied in duration from 0 seconds to many minutes long.  Sometimes the next call would happen right away and other times there would be several minutes delay between calls.  This proceeded to occur over the course of about a day and a half until the POTS provider called us and we blocked the line.
 
The analog line in the show home serves 2 purposes.  It is connected to the SRST FXO port on the Cisco 2801 router and also connects to the analog fax machine.
 
At this point, the POTS provider feels that somehow the 2801 router has been compromised and is being used to route calls out the FXO port.  We have a cordless phone on an ATA, and at first they felt this was the source but I indicated that any calls from the cordless phone would leave through our PRI in the main office, through the phone line on the FXO port.
 
Even if someone had managed to guess our admin password for the console of the router, I don’t believe that person sitting on the Internet would be able to get a call to connect from their computer, through the Internet, and leave out our FXO port in our site.
 
I’m wondering if anyone on the list has some thoughts as to how the system could have been compromise or if it just isn’t possible.  The POTS line is actually a digital line provided by Shaw (a local cable/telco in Alberta).  I feel that their “digital” phone terminal has been compromised though it isn’t connected to the Internet in any way.  One other possibility is old school phone phreaking where someone has actually tapped into the physical line but they would have been sitting outside in the cold for a very long time making these crazy calls.
 
I look forward to any insight the collective brain power of this list can provide. The bill for these calls is over $6000.
 
Regards,
Corbett Enders.
 
Corbett Enders
Network ManagerHomes by Avi - 2007 Canadian Builder of the Year.Tel: (403) 536-7170Fax: (403) 536-7171www.homesbyavi.com 
 
_________________________________________________________________
More than messages–check out the rest of the Windows Live™.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowslive/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://puck.nether.net/pipermail/cisco-voip/attachments/20090108/e0a8a807/attachment.html>